Dumbledore's Questionable Plan
by silvershadowrebel
Summary: Dumbledore fears the upcoming battles against Voldemort. So, he asks his old friend, Chiron, to send reinforcements. Chiron sends Percy, Annabeth, Thalia, and Nico to pose as wizards and help win the war. As they attend Hogwarts, the Golden Trio becomes suspicious on their identities. Will they blow the demigods' covers before the war is over? T for violence. NEW TITLE!
1. Chiron's Counterpart and Percy's Twin

**Summary: Percy, Annabeth, Thalia, and Nico are sent to Hogwarts to help the wizards in their ongoing war with Voldemort. But Harry suspects that they're more than just exchange students. Can the demigods keep their cover as wizards, or will it be blown by the Golden Trio?**

**Disclaimer: Me no own Percy or Harry. I never have and never will. Period. **

Chapter 1: We learn Chiron Has a Counterpart and Meet Percy's Twin (sorta)

Percy's POV

Chiron called me, Annabeth, Nico, and Thalia (who was at camp for some strange reason) into the Big House. We sat down in the Living Room and waited for Chiron to start talking. He paused, gathering his thoughts.

Chiron took a plunge. "I'm not going to beat around this bush with this. I'm just going to go straight to the point. This may come as a shock to you, but there are such things as wizards in this world."

There was mixed reactions. Annabeth scowled, probably annoyed that she hadn't known about this before. Thalia looked calm, like this sort of thing happened everyday. I was ready to implode from the fact that there are _wizards_, as if Greek gods aren't enough. Like, those people who wear pointy hats and way black sticks around. To think that I was strange.

Nico was the first to speak. He looked downright murderous. "I hate those wizard dudes. Always trying to cheat or avoid death. They cause so much paperwork and migraines."

"Wait a sec," I said, leaning forward. "You know about these... wizard people, or whatever?"

Nico rolled his eyes. "Well everybody has to die at some point," he said, like it was obvious. "Except for the Tom dude, and that guy who finally died a couple of years ago, what was his name? Oh yeah, Nicholas Flamel, and Albus..." he trailed off.

I turned to Thalia. "What about you? You don't seem surprised about this."

Thalia waved her hand casually. "Oh, we had a witch a couple of years ago join the Hunt. She died in the Titan War."

"Okay," I responded. "So you two have known about wizards but not told anyone."

My two cousins looked affronted. "We're not the only ones. You can't expect the Hecate cabin to not know about their mother's little pet world," Thalia said.

Chiron broke in. "Yes. Hundreds of years ago, Hecate blessed a number of mortals with the gift of magic. Since then, those mortals have grown and thrived, becoming more and more powerful. There are several wizarding schools located across the world. The closest one is in Salem, Massachusetts, near the..." he trailed off, but quickly continued, "...But the most famous one is in Scotland. Now, many years ago, one mortal took his powers too far. He became evil and tried to take over the world. He believed that only purebloods- wizards who's lineage came from Hecate's first blessed mortals- should be able to use magic. There was this big ongoing war, and Voldemort was killed. But he didn't die."

"Like monsters," I noted.

Nico nodded. "But waaaaaay more annoying." I didn't really understand, but didn't press matters, seeing as Nico looked _really_ pissed.

Chiron continued. "Now he's back and at 'em. My old friend, Albus Dumbledore-"

"Who should have died, like, a million years ago!" Nico broke in.

"Who the heck is named Bumblebore?" Thalia asked, confused.

Chiron sighed, slightly annoyed at the interruptions. "Dumbledore, not Bumblebore. But anyways, my friend Albus has asked for help. He fears a battle, if not the entire war, soon. He has requested for more forces. We have agreed that you four are enough reinforcements."

"So what are we supposed to do?" Annabeth inquired curiously. Didn't anybody ever tell her that curiosity killed the cat? Apparently not.

"You four will be attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

Thalia, Nico and I snorted at the name of the school. "What is that, a skin disease?" I asked, barely controlling my laughter.

Chiron took a deep breath and ignored my outburst. "You will be posing as students learning the art of wizardry. Important: you must not let them know you are demigods. I repeat, do NOT let them know. I have talked with Albus, and you will be transfer students from Salem. Don't worry about the magic- Hecate has agreed to bless you, thank the gods. Now, there is a group of three students, commonly known as the Golden Trio. They have a tendency for getting in trouble. Like you. Watch them and make sure they don't get into dangerous trouble."

"Such as?" Thalia asked.

"Such as fighting Lord Voldemort alone, or something along the lines of that."

We nodded to show we understood.

Chiron pulled out a piece of paper. "According to Albus, you must go to Little Whinging and find a Squib, or a non-magical person who had magical parents, and ask her for directions to Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. That's where you will be staying for the rest of the summer, until school begins. All supplies you will need will be found there."

Annabeth frowned. "Why can't we just go straight to this Grim place?"

"Apparently, this place is very important, and the location is too secret to be put on paper. I think that's about it, but if you have any questions, just ask the professors. They have been told that you are demigods, not wizards."

"When are we leaving?" I asked.

"Immediately, actually. Annabeth and Percy, your families have been informed. Sally wanted me to give you a message, Percy."

"Oh, yeah?" I asked, wondering what she possibly wanted to tell me.

"Don't die, otherwise she'll kill you. Seems a little redundant, if you ask me."

"How are we getting to England, or wherever we're going?" Annabeth asked dubiously.

"Not by plane, _please_ not by plane," I shivered.

"Ditto," Thalia said, and Nico nodded in agreement. "And please not by boat, either."

"I can get us there, guys," Nico spoke up, receiving doubtful looks from the rest of us. "What? I've gotten better over time."

Thalia and I shared a look, but in the end, we agreed.

"Oh, Nico, can I talk to you for a minute, please?" Chiron said just as we were about to leave. Nico hung back as the rest of us walked into the bright sunlight.

Harry POV

I followed Dudley as we made our way back to number four, Privet Drive. I hung back a bit as we neared the shortcut that would lead us to Wisteria Walk. Up ahead, I noticed four teenagers sitting on a low garden wall. Two teens, a boy and a girl both dressed in black, seemed to be arguing. They saw me nearing them, and the two stopped arguing.

"Excuse me, sorry to bother you, but do you know if we're anywhere near Privet Drive?" The punk girl asked. I didn't realize she was talking to me, so I made myself look like an idiot, looking around to find out who she was talking to. When I realized the question was directed to me, I blushed and cleared my throat. "Um, yeah, that's actually where I'm heading. You can follow me if you want." I realized that they could be Death Eaters, but by then, it was too late.

The younger goth boy turned to the girl. "Ha! I did take us to the right place! You just didn't believe me!"

"Well, if you hadn't been such an idiot, we could've asked for directions before, and we wouldn't have been wandering around in the heat for the past hour!" the girl retorted.

"But we didn't _need_ directions! If you'd trusted me, we could have solved this without confirming the fact that _we are in the right place_!"

"Well, seeing what happened _last_ time-"

"Shut it, you two!" the blond girl cut in. The girl turned to me. "Sorry about that. I would say they're not usually like this, but they are. Sadly." I realized that they all had American accents. "But anyway, can you point us in the direction of Privet Drive?"

"Um, sure," I responded. "But first, why do you want to go there?" I got the feeling that they weren't Death Eaters, otherwise they would have killed me by now. That didn't mean I couldn't be suspicious, though.

"We're looking for an old lady," the last teen, a boy said. I inspected him more closely. He kind of looked like me, if you added a lightning scar and glasses. We both had unruly black hair and green eyes, but his were more sea green than emerald green. That was pretty much where the similarities ended, though. He was tall, tanned, and well built, unlike me. His clothes actually _fit_, unlike my hand-me-downs. The blond girl smacked the back of his head.

"We don't know that, Seaweed Brain! She could be young for all we know!"

"Er, anyways, we should go. I'm supposed to be walking with my cousin right now. You guys coming?" They nodded and stood up. I raced to catch up with my stupid git of a cousin, Dudley.

The four Americans hung back as we went through the shortcut. They seemed nervous about something. They kept looking around. Their hands were straying to either a wrist, a pocket, or a hand.

Dudley started to taunt me. "You think you're so brave, don't you? Unlike at night."

"This _is_ night," I pointed out. "When it goes all dark like this."

I heard a snicker from behind me. "Sarcastic, too. Are you sure you don't have a secret twin, Kelp Head," one of them joked.

Dudley continued to taunt me. "I've heard you at night. 'Don't kill him! Please don't kill him! Dad, help me!'" He said in a fake high-pitched voice. I growled but more quiet laughter erupted from behind me.

"And he talks in his sleep just like you! Squirtle, I think we've found your soul mate!"

"Shut up, you two," another one muttered.

All of a sudden, the street went dark. There was a rush of cold air. Dudley started whimpering, complaining that I was the one making it dark, and that he'd tell Uncle Vernon. However, I was completely befuddled. Even the stars seemed to be blacked out. I couldn't see anything, not even when I put my hand in front of my face.

There was another rush of freezing cold air, and I lost all happiness. I knew this feeling- it was dementors. But what were dementors doing in Little Whinging? I remembered the four Americans behind me. "Get down!" I yelled in their general direction. "Cover your mouths! Don't let them get you!"

A dementor swooped in, headed straight for me. I tried to summon a Patronus, but there were no happy thoughts in my head. I tried twice and failed. Then I heard something I didn't think I'd ever hear.

Laughter.

It was one of the boys, laughing hysterically. It cleared my mind long enough to summon a real Patronus. The stag drove right into the dementor. The dementor fled. Then I noticed another. It was prying Dudley's clamped hands off his mouth. "Hey!" I yelled at the Patronus. The dementor leaned over Dudley's now exposed mouth. The stag was too slow.

Then one of the American boys walked forward calmly, right up to the dementor. The dementor straightened up to look at its new prey.

"Get out of here," The goth boy growled quietly. "NOW!" The dementor turned and fled. The air was warm once again, and the streetlights flickered back on. I turned to see the other three Americans staring at the goth one.

"What?" he asked, unperturbed by the fact that he almost just lost his soul.

I thought that they would ask their friend how he did it, but instead the punk girl said disbelievingly, "Did you just laugh?"

A bit of color crept into the younger boy's cheeks. "Maybe."

The others looked shocked. "Behold!" the other boy cried out. "The day in which di Angelo laughs!"

"Shut up," 'di Angelo' muttered.

A low moan brought me back to reality. Dudley was still on the ground, covered in dirt. He was alive, which was all I cared about. There was a shuffling of footsteps, and old Figg arrived.

She was scowling and muttering under her breath. "That old scoundrel! Leaving when he wasn't supposed to, and looked what happened! Dementors! Here, in Little Whinging! Oh, what will they say? I hope Dumbledore gives him a piece f his mind!"

"Wait a second," I said. "You know Dumbledore?"

"Why of course!" the old lady shrieked. "Who doesn't know Dumbledore?"

"You're a witch?" I asked, dumbdounded.

"No! Of course not! I'm a Squib, and Mundungus knows that perfectly well, yet he goes off to see about some business! Lucky I had Mr. Tibbles on the case."

At the mention of a Squib, the Americans straightened up.

"See! I told you she was old!" my look-a-like said.

The blond slapped his arm. Ms. Figg turned to face them. "Who are... ah, the Americans. Dumbledore told me you would come looking for me. Well, we best get Potter here home first, before I answer your question. Come along."

Dudley hadn't moved, and it was obvious that he wasn't going to anytime soon. I mentally groaned at the though of having o carry him.

My look-a-like must have been thinking along the same lines, because he came up to me and offered to help carry the walrus-sized cousin. We slowly made our way to number four, Privet Drive. Ms. Figg insisted that I keep my wand out.

When we got to the garden wall, she left me, and the Americans followed her. I made my way up to the front door and turned around, wanting to ask Figg something. But she was gone, as was the other four teenagers. All that was left was a rush of cold air.

**Dun, dun, dun! How'd you like it? This is my first crossover, so I'd appreciate constructive criticism. **

**Just so you know, the demigods have their own nicknames for each other. Annabeth uses Seaweed Brain for Percy, Pinecone Face for Thalia, and Death Breath for Nico. Percy uses Wise Girl for Annabeth, Pinecone Face for Thalia, and Zombie Dude for Nico. Thalia uses Owl Head for Annabeth, Kelp Head for Percy, and di Angelo for Nico. Nico uses Wise One for Annabeth, Squirtle for Percy, and Sparkles for Thalia. **

**Review, please! **

**Silver out.**


	2. Sleeping and Anger Issues

**Greetings fellow readers! If you're reading this, it means you have no life! Just kidding. But seriously, I'm so HAPPY! Fifteen reviews for the first chapter? Oh, I love you guys. Not really. That would just be perverted. But you made me really happy. I'll try to update ASAP. Though I may go MIA at times. Don't worry. **

**In this story, Percy and Annabeth are sixteen, Thalia's fifteen, and Nico's fourteen. Percy doesn't have Achilles' Curse. Deal with it. Post-Titan war, HoO never happens.**

**But anyways, I don't own Percy, Harry, spiders, Get Smart, or wands. Actually, I do have a wand...**

Chapter Two: Percy Falls Asleep (there's a shocker) and Harry Has Anger Issues

Nico POV

We arrived just outside of the Order's Headquarters and I nearly collapsed from exhaustion. Percy caught my arm.

"Hold in there, Zombie Dude," he told me as Annabeth brought out a piece of paper.

"The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix can be found at number twelve, Grimmauld Place," she read quietly then looked up and frowned. "Which is where, exactly?"

Even as she spoke, a dark space began to grow between numbers eleven and thirteen. Before long, we were staring at a dark mansion with a snake-shaped knocker on the front door. We exchanged a glance. Then Thalia walked boldly up to the front door and rang the doorbell. Then we waited.

There was the sound of muffled thumps and voices, then the door opened a crack. A stoutly-looking woman with flaming red hair peeked out, aiming a stick at us. I couldn't help myself. I snorted.

Annabeth shot me a glare before turning back to the witch. "Hi, um, we're the reinforcements from America..." she trailed off as the woman opened the door a bit wider. However, she didn't lower her sti-er, wand.

"Tornadoes hit double-header," she said randomly.

Thalia, Annabeth, and Percy exchanged glanced at each other confusedly. However, I replied, "When the awkward bird takes flight at midnight." My cousins looked at me. "What? Chiron gave me the password."

This time, the door opened all the way and the woman stowed her wand away. "Ah, you must be Nico!" she exclaimed as she flung her arms around me. I stiffened. The only people who dared to hug me were standing half a step behind me.

Percy cleared his throat. "Um, first of all, Nico's not really the touchy-feely type. And secondly, can we come in?"

The motherly witch released her death grip on me. "Why, of course dears!" she exclaimed. "Come right in!"

I hung back with Percy as Thalia and Annabeth followed the witch. "Thanks," I muttered.

"No problem," Percy grinned. "You looked like you were read to break out your evil ninja skills." We walked into the front hall. "Looks like your kind of place, coz."

He was right. Everything was dark, evil, gloomy, and altogether depressing. It reminded me of the entrance parlor in Hades' Palace. However, in the Palace, the private quarters have more of a homey feel to them. I got the feeling that the rest of the house was just as gloomy as this hall.

We were led into a basement kitchen that looked like it had been carved from stone. A long wooden table seemed to be the centerpiece of the room. A delicious smell arose from the oven. My stomach growled and I realized I had missed lunch. The table was surrounded by several odd-looking people.

"We're having an Order meeting right now," the woman informed us. "You're welcome to join us for this meeting, so we can answer any questions you have. However, only wizards seventeen or older can join the Order. Why don't we make some introductions? I'm Molly Weasley, by the way."

We sat down awkwardly, next to each other. The wizards seated around the table were staring at us curiously. Almost a little too curiously.

We fidgeted a bit, waiting for something to happen. A balding red haired man broke the silence. "I'm Arthur Weasley. I work at the Ministry of Magic, in the Department of Misuse of Muggle Artifacts. Now tell me, these me-pings-"

"I'm Remus Lupin," the man next to him broke in, cutting Mr. Weasley off. He was on the younger side, but had gray streaks in his hair, and his clothing was very patched and frayed. "I'm- a, er,- werewolf."

Next to me, Thalia stiffened and her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. I gripped her wrist under the table and murmured barely audibly, "Not the same type, Thals." Her head jerked in a half-nod and she relaxed a bit.

The next person was another redhead. "Hello. I'm Bill Weasley. I usually work as a curse breaker in the Egyptian Pyramids, but I'm here for now." He had longish red hair and an earring.

"Wotcher," said the next one, this time a woman. If I didn't lead such a strange life, I probably would've been shocked by the fact that her head was bubble-gum pink. "Name's Tonks." She grinned at us.

I was relieved to find that the next person I recognized. Well, from pictures, anyways. He had long black hair, a sallow face from being around dementors too long, and a brooding expression. "You're Sirius Black, aren't you?" I asked. He looked surprised by the fact that I knew who he was.

"Er, yes. How d'you know who I am?" he asked, slightly suspicious.

I shrugged. "You caused quite an uproar amongst the dementors a few years ago." The wizards looked shocked.

They went around the table, introducing themselves. I couldn't remember most of them, but a few stayed in my head. Kingsley Shacklebolt, Severus Snape, who I found out was our Potions Master, and Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, a wood carving of a man with a fake eye. Every time the stupid eye looked at me, I felt like it could see straight through to my soul. I wouldn't be surprised if it could.

Annabeth spoke up. "Is there anyone, you know, our age?"

Mrs. Weasley beamed. "Of course, there's Hermione Granger, my sons Fred, George, and Ron, and my daughter Ginny. Harry should be arriving in a few days, as well. But the rest are upstairs right now."

I frowned. I'm not very good with names. "Harry," I mused, "Black hair, green eyes, kind of what Percy would look like if he died a non-gory death?"

There were mixed reactions to that. Percy snorted. "Only you would think that, Nics, only you."

"You sound kind of like Geryon," Annabeth commented mildly. I rolled my eyes at the two of them.

Meanwhile, all the redheads stiffened visibly. I realized that they didn't know who we were yet. I waved my hand at Percy. "This is Percy by the way."

Percy waved. "Hey." They relaxed. "Um, I guess we should introduce ourselves." He looked at Annabeth. "Titles or no titles?"

"No titles," she responded definitively.

"Oh, thank the gods. We'd be here all night otherwise," Thalia expressed her relief.

Percy rolled his eyes at her. "Shut up." Then he turned to face the rest of the room. "So I'm Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon, god of the seas, horses, earthquakes, blah blah blah."

I went next, since I was sitting next to Percy. "Hey. 'M Nico di Angelo, son of Hades, god of the dead, riches, Underworld, etc." I glanced at Thalia.

"My name is Thalia. Just Thalia. If you call me anything other than Thalia, you will find yourselves a fried corpse before you can say-"

"Pinecone Face?"

"Sparkles?"

Thalia turned to glare at us. "I hate you two. I really do."

Percy pretended to yawn. "You've said that already. What else is new?"

Thalia made a disgusted sound and went back to introducing herself. "I'm a daughter of Zeus, Lord of the skies, and King of Gods. I'm also a Lieutenant of Artemis."

Annabeth went last. She sat up proudly. "I am Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena, goddess of wisdom, battle, and crafts."

They nodded. Snape handed us a piece of paper with a long list of names on it. "This is a list of people who know who you are. If their name isn't on the list, don't do anything around them that might make them suspicious. Particularly around Potter and his friends. They have a tendency for being too nosy for their own good." (cue Snape voice)

They continued with their meeting, Annabeth occasionally asking questions to receive confusing answers. My mind started to wander, noticing minuscule and trivial things, like Snape had on two different colored shoes, and the dude next to Percy had really bad breath. Speaking of Percy...

Percy had fallen asleep. Luckily, no one had noticed yet. I caught Annabeth's attention and motioned at Percy with my head. She leaned over Thalia and me, and poked him in the arm. He didn't move.

Thalia tried to kick his leg, which resulted in a shooting pain in my leg. "What the Hades?" I hissed. "What are your shoes made of? Titanium?"

Thalia rolled her eyes. "Wimp," she muttered. Then she tried kicking Percy again. This time, she hit him square on the shin. Percy simply groaned and shifted his head a bit.

I flicked him on the temple. No use. By now, we were getting noticed by the wizards. They had stopped talking and were staring at us.

Thalia waved. "Hey."

"What are you doing?" one of them asked.

"Percy has a tendency to fall asleep during class or important meetings. It's one of his traits," Annabeth explained. Then she frowned, "But he should have woken up by now. He's not a very deep sleeper, usually."

I shrugged. "He has to tune out an annoying teacher's voice, so he must be used to sleeping heavily during class so he doesn't wake up."

"Homeostasis..." Annabeth muttered.

Thalia looked at her critically. "What?" Annabeth shook her head as if to clear it.

"Never mind."

We tried several other techniques, including clapping, pinching his nose, shouting in his ear, and poking him where his Achilles Heel used to be. Nothing worked.

"Alright," I said, straightening out. "Somebody get me a glass of water."

Annabeth looked at me appraisingly. "Not a bad idea. Why didn't I think of it?" Thalia and I shared a looked, but we said nothing.

Sirius returned with an old silver goblet filled with water. I glanced at it, feeling the weight of it. "Pure silver, typical of the medieval times?" I asked him.

Sirius looked at me with caution. He was probably still freaked out that I knew who he was. "Er, yeah. That's exactly what it is."

"Interesting," I murmured. I could differentiate different types of precious metals, seeing as my father is the god of riches.

"Nico! Focus!" Annabeth snapped her fingers right in front of my face.

"Right," I said. I walked over to Percy and dumped the contents of the silver goblet right in his face, then darted back to safety.

Percy woke up from the shock of the freezing cold water. In an instant, he had Riptide out, looking around wildly while his black hair hung in his eyes, dripping wet.

"Finally, you're awake," Thalia said striding over to him. "You can really sleep like the dead.

I gave her a critical look. "The dead don't sleep," I pointed out to her.

She rolled her eyes. "Like I care."

"The dead care!"

"How could they? They're _dead_!"

"That doesn't mean they don't have feelings!"

"Shut up, you two! Not this argument again!" Percy exclaimed. He was dry now, and glaring at us.

Annabeth turned to the bewildered wizards. "Don't mind them. Actually, don't mind all three of them. The more you ignore their outbursts, the less likely you are to end up in a pool of electrocuted water."

Ron's POV

**Four Days Later...**

Harry came thundering up the stairs, and he had barely even stepped over the threshold before Hermione was gripping him like he might get kidnapped by You-Know-Who if she wasn't looking. Which was altogether possible, might I add.

"Calm down, 'Mione," I told her after a few minutes. "He just got here."

Hermione blushed and stepped away. It left me with a clear view of my best friend, Harry (freaking) Potter. "Hey," I said.

We talked about trivial matters, but then the subject turned to the dementors.

"It must have been terrible, Harry," Hermione said, "Facing two dementors! You were extremely brave. Dumbledore was furious when he found out that you were attacked."

For some reason, that seemed to make Harry mad. "Oh, yeah? It must have been nice, sitting here while I was out there, with now clue what was going on and got attacked by dementors!" Harry's voice steadily grew louder. Hermione and I tried to calm him down by telling him that we really didn't know anything (because we didn't), but it wasn't long before he was outright shouting at us. Hermione cringed and backed up, trying to defend us.

There was a loud CRACK and my two idiotic twin brothers appeared right in front of me.

"STOP _DOING_ THAT!" I yelled at them, scared half out out my wits. "You couldn't just walk down the stairs like normal people?"

"Time is Galleons, little brother," Fred told me wisely.

There were several footsteps coming down the hallway, and the door burst open revealing those Americans. How they got here from the fourth floor in a matter of seconds was a mystery to me.

"We thought we heard-" Annabeth started, then saw Harry. "Oh."

Nico looked thoughtful. "Anger issues as well? Percy, are you _positive_-"

Percy Jackson turned to the slightly younger teen. "Nico, I do. Not. Have. A. Twin. Dead or otherwise. So shut up. Nor do I have anger issues."

The other three simply stared at him at that last comment. "Sure," Thalia said dragging out the word, making it obvious that she didn't believe him.

"Hey! You're the people from Little Whinging!" Harry exclaimed, pointing at them. He noticed Nico. "And you were the one with the dementor!"

Nico smirked. "Yeah. And you were the one who wasn't surprised that I laughed."

"So you _did_ laugh!" Thalia exclaimed. Nico simply looked at her like she was crazy. "And I'm not crazy," she added.

"Wait a second," I said, suffering from a major brain block. "What are you guys talking about?"

"We were in Little Whinging, and we met Harry about four days ago," Annabeth exclaimed.

Harry nodded vigorously. "Yeah. But what are you doing here?"

"We're transfer students," Percy Jackson said. "We're just staying here until September."

"Huh," was all I could say. But when I looked at Hermione, I noticed that look she always got when at school- like her mind was going a million miles a minute.

**Whew! I worked my butt off on this chapter for you guys. I really hope you liked it. If you did, or even if you didn't, review please! If I get as many reviews as the first chapter, I'll update this before all my other fics. Bye! **


	3. Books, Headaches, and Spiders, Oh My!

**Sorry guys, I had a chapter, but I didn't like where it was going, so I had to rewrote the whole thing. That's why it took so long to update. We passed my goal for reviews! I'm so happy! I am formally thanking everyone who reviewed, favorited, or followed me in the past couple of days.**

**The original third chapter consisted mainly of our favorite demigods opening their trunks and getting comfy. Truth be told, it was quite boring. I myself was falling asleep, and I was high on a massive cookie, a king-sized Baby Ruth candy bar, and a Klondike. So that's saying something.**

**The part in italics is what was part of the original chapter, just so you know what happened.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Mr. Potter or Mr. Jackson.**

Chapter Three: Books, Spiders, and Headaches, Oh My!

Percy's POV

_After the meeting, Mrs. Weasley showed us to our rooms on the fourth floor. Nico and I would be sharing a room across the hall from Annabeth and Thalia._

"_Dinner will be in a little while, so make yourselves at home," Mrs. Weasley told us. Nico and I ventured into our room. The room was gloomy, just like the rest of the house. There were two four-post beds and two trunks next to them. I was shocked to find that the portraits were actually moving. _

_We walked over to our trunks. They were both black. The one on the left had PERCY JACKSON imprinted on the top, while the one on the right had NICO DI ANGELO. Nico and I glanced at each other and made to open our respective trunks. But before we could, Annabeth and Thalia appeared in our doorway lugging their own trunks behind them. _

"_We thought we should open them together," Annabeth explained._

"_Correction. You thought we should open them together. I was perfectly fine keeping this fifty pound treasure chest in our room," Thalia corrected. Annabeth simply rolled her eyes._

_We opened the trunks at the same time. I was highly disappointed to find that the majority of the contents were... books. I glanced at Annabeth- her eyes got that gleam that only appears when she's looking at architecture, books, or Daedalus' laptop. _

_After the books were black things that looked like something Dracula might wear. "Hey Nico," got an idea. "You should try on your outfit," I told him._

_Nico looked at me, catching onto my idea. "Sure," he said. We watched as he slipped on black robes, and a pointed black hat. The reaction was immediate: the three viewers burst into laughter, and Nico couldn't conceal his smile. It took us a good five minutes to calm down. _

"_You can take them off now, Nico," I told him._

"_No, I feel jolly good in them. I think I'll keep them on," he said with a straight face, imitating a British dude. That just caused more laughter. However, Nico didn't actually keep them on. He threw off the robe and hat and sat down as Annabeth looked at the books in her trunk._

"_Wait a second," I said as I peered into her trunk. "Why do you have more books than me?"_

_Annabeth eyed me. "Do you want more books? 'Cause I can give you more books if you want more books."_

"_Uh, that's okay," I said quickly. "I'll leave you to your books." Thalia snickered._

_Annabeth picked up some of her books. She read the titles out to us. "Living At Hogwarts For Dummies; A Crash Course for the New Wizard; Voldemort and His Reign For Dummies; A Very Interesting History of Harry Potter."_

_I groaned. "Let me guess, we have to actually read them?"_

_Annabeth rolled her eyes. "No, they are magically going to speak to us at night, and in the morning we will have all the information we need. Of course we have to read them, Seaweed Brain!"_

_The final things in our trunks were our wands. This was the last straw. "Okay, I give up. This is crazy! What are we supposed to do, wave the wand and say 'Abracadabra'?"_

"_Percy, if you haven't got anything nice to say, don't say anything at all," my girlfriend chided. She brought out her wand and a piece of paper. "Apparently, our wands have been custom made to work specifically for us. According to the paper," she leaned in a bit, "Mine is made from the wood of an olive tree, with the feather of a phoenix. Yours," she indicated me, "is made of beech, with the hair of a mermaid." She half frowned, half smiled at that. "Nico, yours is made from a poplar tree, with a hair from a thestral, whatever that is."_

_I held up my hand to stop Annabeth. "Wait a second. Let me guess Thalia's... made from pine, feather of an eagle?"_

_Nico snorted. Annabeth consulted her paper, not like she needed to. "Yup," she said, popping the "p"._

Ron's POV

Over the days, we fell into a routine that largely consisted of cleaning, eating, and sleeping. Well, that's what Mum thought. In our spare time, Hermione, Harry and I would convene in our room, discussing important matters, like what the heck Snape was talking about when he said he was risking his life. I was glad that we got alone time together, I was starting to feel a bit left out.

Hermione and Annabeth got along quite well. I always thought there was only one Hermione in the world, but apparently the world is against me. Annabeth was, if possible, smarter than Hermione. Thalia and Ginny had developed a mutual relationship. Harry and Percy Jackson had bonded over a heart-to-heart about responsibilities. Heck, even Nico could be found conversing with my older brother, Bill.

Other than that, the Americans seemed rather closed off. They spent most of their time together, and you could occasionally hear bouts of laughter, or screaming and yelling. That was pretty much all they did. Either they were extremely chummy, or they were trying to kill each other.

Everything changed the day we attacked the drawing room. Mum pulled me and Harry out of our room and dragged us down to the drawing room, where Hermione my siblings, and the Americans were waiting.

As we attacked the annoying little critters in the curtains, found myself next to Nico. Over the tea towel covering his mouth, I could see that his eyes were narrowed ever so slightly. I assumed it was the fact that the poxies kept trying to go for his face.

Sirius popped in from time to time, all the while keeping up an air of politeness towards Mum. They still hadn't gotten over the argument about who was in charge of Harry. Harry hadn't been too pleased with that argument.

After we finished getting rid of the magical creatures that infested the room, we moved on to cleaning the drawing room out. Basically the rule was: If it looks like it could be used for Dark Arts, throw it out. So that was pretty much everything.

At one point, I noticed Nico sneak what looked like a vial of blood into his pocket. Jackson, as we had started calling him to avoid confusion with my brother, shot Nico a glare, then they got into a whispered argument.

"You can't just take stuff off the shelves," Jackson muttered.

"Perce, do you know how valuable this blood is? Only one drop is equivalent to an entire Happy meal!" Nico hissed back.

"Do you really want to make them suspicious?"

"Is this really a good time to review our morals?"

"Wait, what?"

"Never mind."

"No, I want to know what you mean."

"Well maybe I don't feel like telling you!"

"Hey! I've got seniority here!"

Nico snorted. "Well, if you want to be technical..."

"The Casino doesn't count!"

What in Merlin's Beard were they talking about?

"Hey guys," I said, making the two of them jump and spin around. "What are you talking about?"

Jackson blushed. "Oh, um..."

Nico rolled his eyes. "I'm a...er... necromancer. Yeah, let's leave it at that. Percy here seems to think that I should pass up a possibly extremely powerful way to summon the dead."

Whatever I had been expecting, it wasn't that. This fourteen year old kid raises the dead for fun? I was about to turn away when Nico suddenly pressed the heels of his hands to his temples.

"Hey, Zombie Dude, you okay?" Jackson looked concerned. Well, I guess that explains the strange nicknames for Nico. I mean, Death Breath and Zombie Dude? Not exactly common nicknames you come up with.

Nico didn't say anything for a minute. Then he straightened up and muttered, "Yeah. Just a headache." I didn't see anything abnormal with a headaches, so I let it go and moved on.

I thought that would be the end of strange happening for the day, but apparently it wasn't. Not only did we discover that music boxes can be lethal, I also discovered that Nico really hats lockets.

We came across a really old and large locket. There were diamonds set into it, spelling the letter "S". When we tried to open it, nobody could. Harry tried, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a movement. Nico had doubled over, clutching his head. The other three Americans were immediately on guard, looking around for something, like they would find the source of Nico's pain.

"Nico?" Jackson said, looking concerned yet again. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Nico said through clenched teeth. "Just a migraine. Do you have any aspirin?"

"Uh, yeah, I've got some in my bag upstairs. I'll go get it," Annabeth spoke up, looking thoroughly disgruntled. She ran out of the room. Meanwhile, Nico looked at the locket like he wanted to pulverize it. Jackson muttered something, then he, Nico and Thalia got into a whispered discussion. I tried to follow what they were saying, but it sounded like it was in a completely different language. Nico looked annoyed, Thalia looked worried, and Percy looked downright confused.

Before long, Annabeth made a reappearance with a small bottle of Muggle medicine. Nico gulped down a pill gratefully. After that was resolved, Sirius made the decision to through the locket out.

After we finished cleaning the drawing room, we moved on to the dining room. That was when I noticed the spiders. I opened my mouth to excuse myself from the room, but a loud, piercing shriek cut me off. Everyone spun around to see Annabeth frozen, staring at the spiders. "Sp-Sp-spiders," she managed.

This may seem kind of mean, but I was relieved. At least I wasn't the only one scared of those creepy crawlers that stick straws into your skin and suck out your blood. Okay, now I'm freaking myself out.

"C'mon, Annabeth, let's go have a cup of tea," I said. Jackson looked at me gratefully.

"Thanks," he said. "Spiders have got something against her. I swear, every spider withing a three mile radius of her will find her. No joke."

I led Annabeth into the kitchen, where I made two cups of tea. "So spiders are out to get you too," I said, trying to strike up a conversation.

Annabeth shuddered. "Yeah. Ever since I was little."

Somehow, that reminded me of what Nico had said the other day. I cleared my throat nervously. "Er, this is slightly random," I began.

Annabeth gave a little laugh. "Oh, I live with random," she told me. "All four of us are ADHD."

"Oh. Okay. But, er, I was wondering... is Nico really a necromancer?"

Annabeth looked amused at my discomfort. "I suppose he is... I never really thought of it that way."

"Then how did you think of it?"

Annabeth blushed, as if she had made a mistake. "Oh...you know... just a strange little kid that messes with the dead and has a very disturbing mind."

At least I'm not the only one who thinks that.

We enjoyed our tea, talking about small things like who we thought the DADA teacher would be, what spells Annabeth had covered at her old school, how much she knew about Harry's past (which wasn't much). When I asked her about the latter, she simply shrugged.

"He's not as famous in America as here. We weren't as affected by Voldemort (need I say that I shuddered?) overseas."

About an hour and a half later, we went back to the dining room. Needless to say, it was mass chaos. Nico was intently examining a plate encrusted with diamonds and emeralds, completely oblivious to the rest of the world. Thalia and Jackson were in a heated argument. Fred and George were being yelled at by Mum; something about stealing unknown substances; Ginny and Sirius were watching in mild amusement. I exchanged a glance with Annabeth: we both knew that they were all hopeless cases.

Annabeth grumbled something about being the responsible one, then shouted, "EVERYBODY! SHUT UP AND STOP MOVING!" That did the trick. Nico looked up from his examination, Thalia and Jackson stopped arguing immediately, Mum's jaw clamped shut, causing Fred and George o turn around in surprise, and Sirius and Ginny gaped at Annabeth. "Right. Nico, put the stupid platter down, I don't care if it's made of Swarovski crystals. Mrs. Weasley, please refrain from berating your children, it will only cause them to be even more annoying (the twins looked at her appalled). Fred and George, if you don't stop being klepto, I'm sure Percy will be happy to demonstrate what he does to annoying people. Ginny and Sirius, if you don't stop gaping at me like that, you're going to catch a flying fish, forget flies. And you two..." she turned threateningly to her friends. They gulped nervously. "SHUT UP FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIVES!"

"Who put a bee in your bonnet?" Nico muttered. "And since when have you been a therapist?"

"Nico..." she warned, and Nico shut up and put down the plate.

"Alright," she said, this time much more brightly. "Let's clean this place up."

I the corner of my eye, I noticed the other three Americans share a look. Then Jackson shook his head, like his girlfriend was a lost cause, and went back to work.

**Okay, okay, I know it was terrible. I really had no inspiration for this...**

**Whoa. I just got distracted by a butterfly. ANYWAYS... I would really appreciate it if you reviewed anyways, it will help me get past this writer's block. Though the next chapter should be much better... our demigods get to meet Draco... mwahaha...**

**REVIEW!**


	4. Wonderful Wizards of Hogwarts

**I really should be getting back to my other stories, but what the heck. I'm really into this one. And everybody's so supportive! Thank you for all the reviews! This is my most popular story other than my SYOC. **

**Here's a warning: when you read this chapter, make sure you are in a secluded room with the door closed. No, I am not going to kill you, this chapter just has a lot of humor in it. A lot. I hope you enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: Misters Jackson and Potter do not belong to me. That would just be weird. Besides, I would prefer Nico...**

Chapter Four: We're Off to See the Wonderful Wizards of Hogwarts

Percy's POV

The morning of September first reminded me greatly of the day before the Titan War. Everybody wasrunning around, looking for things of importance, people were yelling, the portrait of Mrs. Black was screeching, and nobody could find Harry. So in other words, Code Red.

At one point, Fred (or was it George? Oh, whatever. On with the story!) knocked down Ginny with his trunk. Cue more yelling. Then one of Harry's guard (who was still yet to make an appearance) didn't show up. Cue more panic. By the time we got out of Headquarters, my head was pounding so much, it felt like a Minotaur had jumped up and down on it.

We squished into two clown cars that greatly interested Annabeth. Since we didn't have enough room, Nico volunteered to Shadow Travel over there. I think he was just scared of being at too close quarters with other people.

We got to the train station with time to spare, thank the gods. The Guard led us to the area between platforms nine and ten. It was then and only then that I noticed a large, scruffy black dog was among us. And he was getting reactions from certain people.

"You're being stupid, do you really want to get caught?" Mrs. Weasley hissed. Meanwhile, Harry (who turned out to have just been asleep) was grinning like Tyke had blessed him. Ron and Hermione had worried expressions.

I walked over to Ron and muttered, "Why are you guys so hyped up about a dog?"

"Sirius is an Animagus," he muttered quietly. "A wizard that can transform into an animal."

"Alright," Mr. Weasley said, cutting off all conversation. "Here's what you have to do: when nobody's looking, run straight at the wall."

We looked at him like Mr. D had gotten to him. "You want us to run into a wall," Thalia repeated bluntly.

Mr. Weasley frowned. "Yes, I think that's what I just said."

"Nico, I think you should go first- you've had experience at running into walls," I told the son of Hades, who in turn glared at me.

"No, I think you should go first, Percy," Annabeth said, surprising me. "Let me put it this way: your ego is so inflated, that if you run into a wall, it won't matter. And if we're lucky, your ego will deflate enough that you can fit into a normal sized doorway," she teased me.

I glanced at my cousins, who were smirking. "Why do you guys hate me so much?" I whined.

"Oh, we don't hate you," Annabeth tried to reassure me, but when she received a look from Thalia, she amended her statement, "...most of the time. We're just being logical."

"I hate being logical," I grumbled.

"Mm," Nico agreed with me. "Logical definitely isn't your thing. Like when you wanted us to _jump_ off a _cliff _in the middle of a _blizzard_."

"Hey, at least my plan was better than yours."

"I didn't _have_ a plan."

"Precisely."

"I was ten! I wasn't supposed to have plans!"

"I had plans when I was ten!"

"Yeah, to blow up your school bus!"

"THAT WASN'T PLANNED! By the way, how d'you know about that?"

"JUST GO!" Everybody yelled at me, causing several mortals to stare. Before I knew it, my girlfriend and two cousins were behind me, pushing me towards the barrier. When I got within five feet, I shut my eyes and prayed to whatever god who was in charge of brick walls (I think that would be Janus, you know, the annoying god of doorways?) and braced myself for impact. You can imagine my surprise when I opened my eyes to see, not my blood spilled everywhere, but a massive red train being swarmed by people in swishy robes. Well, at least I got the right color. You know, blood is red, the train is red? Oh whatever.

Like always, the sight, or even thought, of robes made me think of a tall skinny dude wearing robes with stars and moons on them, with a pointy hat to boot, waving around a stick and muttering nonsense words. Mind you, that's what the sight of just _one_ robe will do. But with everybody in sight wearing them, well, something inside me snapped. Hard. I started cracking up.

Annabeth, Thalia, and Nico appeared behind me. They noticed me doubled over trying to breath.

Thalia raised an eyebrow. "Um, Annabeth? I don't think ODE went too well."

"ODE?" Nico inquired.

"Short for Operation Deflate Ego," Annabeth explained. "But I don't think it worked the way I wanted it to."

"Gee, ya think?" Thalia said sarcastically. "Now we have to deal with a crazy Percy."

"I'm not crazy!" I said as I straightened up. "It's just that when I saw all the people in robes... well... Oh my gods, are those broomsticks?" I noticed a broom getting carried by a kid around our age, and pointed at him. The others looked where I was pointing.

Our sanity was saved by the arrival of everybody else, including Sirius. The adults said their goodbyes. I was a little surprised when Mrs. Weasley hugged me, but I was started to get used to it. She'd learned not to hug Nico, thank the gods, but she did hug Annabeth and Thalia. Harry led us to the train, when he found out that Ron and Hermione had to do Prefect duties.

The only open compartment already had two occupants. There was a dark-haired, nervous-looking boy holding a cactus-like thing and a girl with long blond hair reading a magazine upside down. Vaguely, I wondered if reading something upside down would make it easier to read with dyslexia. I highly doubt it would change anything. We sat down, with me between the girl (who turned out to be Luna) and Nico. Thalia, Ginny, Harry and the boy, Neville, sat on the other side.

There was a silence in which we all looked at each other. "Awkward silence," I stage-whispered.

"Sooo..." Harry said, breaking the silence. "What houses do you think you'll be sorted into?"

Annabeth and I exchanged glances. "What do you mean, houses?"

Harry POV

So they were going to the most prestigious wizardry school in all of Europe but they didn't know anything about it? What is this? Then I remembered what I had been like when I first came to Hogwarts. I took pity on them. "When you're at school, you are sorted into one of four houses. The houses are like your family. You do everything with them: eat, sleep, and attend classes together. If you do good stuff, you earn points for your house. Any rule breaking subtracts points. There are four houses: Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff. Gryffindor is known for being brave and daring. Slytherin is for the cunning and evil, basically. Ravenclaws are extremely smart, and Hufflepuff is for the just and loyal."

"So," Nico summed up. "Annabeth will be in Ravenclaw because she's just smart like that, I will be in Slytherin because that's how I roll, Percy will be in Hufflepuff because he's too loyal for his own good, and Thalia?" Nico mused*, "Thalia, you get kicked out because you don't fit in any of the categories."

"Hey!" Thalia protested as she lunged across the compartment to tackle Nico.

"Ew! Get off me!" Nico complained, pushing the girl off.

"Well, maybe if you took back what you said..."

"But it's true! Cunning is so not your thing. Loyalty isn't really in your job description. Just totally isn't either. In no possible way are you smart, and brave... well, that's questionable at times."

"He's got a point," Percy commented. I watched them in mild amusement.

Just then, Hermione and Ron walked in. They took the last two seats.

"How are your prefect duties?" I asked them casually, trying to ignore the death glares Thalia and Nico were sending each other.

"Well, guess who's prefect for the Slytherins," Ron said grumpily, devouring a Chocolate Frog.

"Malfoy."

"And Pansy Parkinson," Hermione added with distaste. "You know, the one who's face looks like a pug's."

"Malfoy's going to be all over his position. I just can't wait to give Crabbe and Goyle detentions," Ron said.

"Ron! You mustn't sink to their level!" Hermione scolded.

"I'm not. I'm just going to get his goons before he can get my friends. Maybe I'll make Goyle do lines. Yeah he hates those," Ron added thoughtfully. He mimed writing on a piece of paper. "I...must...not...look...like...a... baboon's backside."

Everyone in the compartment snickered. Except for Luna Lovegood. She fell off her seat, rolling in laughter.

Merely seconds after Luna had calmed down, the compartment door slid open, revealing the one and only Draco Malfoy, his two thugs shadowing his footsteps.

"Malfoy," I said with as much venom in my voice as I could muster.

Malfoy's gaze slid past me and settled on the Americans. "Who's this?" he sneered.

Ginny stood up defiantly. "None of your business," she snarled.

Nico grabbed her wrist gently. "It's fine," he muttered. "Might as well as make our reputation now."

"Who's this? Your boyfriend? A little young for you, don't you think?"

Nico made a strangled noise that sounded like a cat coughing up a hairball. Annabeth looked at him in concern while Thalia and Percy tried, unsuccessfully, to suppress snorts.

"You wish, pretty boy," Nico said, standing up too. With his black Muggle clothing and slouched posture, he looked sad and not very intimidating. But his eyes were full of anger.

"An American?" Draco said in mock surprise. "How...unexpected. What's your name? Or do you have no manners?"

"Nico di Angelo," Nico replied coldly. "Perhaps you could grace me with yours, or is that too far below you to give your name to strangers?"

"Draco Malfoy," Malfoy replied with superiority. "I would expect you to at least know my surname."

Nico shrugged. "Sorry, but we Americans don't stand on ceremony too much. You gain your status. So unless you've done something outstanding that changed the world as we know it, I feel safe to say that I don't know who the blazes you are." Wow this kid was good. In the past thirty seconds, he'd insulted Malfoy three times. Malfoy looked shocked for a second before turning to the others. Nico sat down, satisfied.

"And you?" Malfoy shot at Jackson.

"Percy Jackson," Jackson replied calmly and evenly. "Though I'm not going to bother asking if you know me. And before you ask, no, I don't know who the Hades you are." Nico shot Jackson a glance.

Before Malfoy could put a word in edgewise, Thalia spoke up. "You can call me Thalia, if you wish to speak to me or about me."

"No last name?" Malfoy sneered.

"Not for you," Thalia replied.

Annabeth, the last to introduce herself, narrowed her eyes as she said, "I'm Annabeth Chase."

"I don't recognize any of your surnames. I suppose you must be Muggle born, or possibly half bloods. Well, which is it?"

The Americans exchanged glances, then responded simultaneously with, "Half Bloods."

Malfoy sighed. "Well, I suppose that's better than Muggle born. I am going to give a piece of advice now: be careful who you make friends with. Purebloods have a greater chance at success in the real world compared to people with filthy little Mudblood parents-"

Malfoy got cut off by Nico who lunged at him, pushing him up against the wall and grasping his neck with his hand. I could see Nico's eyes were filled with hatred, burning with anger. But... there was an underlying sense of pain there, too.

"If I hear you say that ever again, you will wish I killed you right here and now," Nico say quietly and slowly, making himself all the more frightening. "I have sources you'd never even _dream_ of using. If you want to test me, then so be it, and Father help me," he threatened. Then he landed a left uppercut to Malfoy's jaw. Malfoy's head snapped back, hitting the wall. Already, his mouth was bloody. Nico let go of the Slytherin and stared him down until he turned to go out the door.

"My father will hear about this," Malfoy added as he walked out the door. "And watch yourself. I'll be _dogging_ your footsteps, Potter." Then he left, with his two bodyguards following stupidly.

Nico shook out his left hand, massaging his bruised knuckles. "That was refreshing," he said lightly, but there was still an air of hurt and anger.

Jackson had an amused look on his face. "And that is why you don't want to get this kid mad."

"Who is his father?" Annabeth inquired.

"A Death Eater," Ron replied vehemently. Needless to say, we were all surprised when the Americans started to laugh.

"Who the heck would want to eat Thanatos?" Percy said between gasps of breath.

Nico shook his head, smiling. "I know for a fact that death does not taste good at all."* He shuddered at the memory.

Thalia stared at him, as Nico realized what he had just said. "YOU PERVERT!" she screamed.

"NO! I didn't mean it like that..." he protested, but trailed off as the others fell into fresh rounds of laughter.

"Nico, is there something you're not telling us?" Percy teased.

"Don't be shy, we're all family here," Annabeth added.

"I'm not the one with the messed up mind here, that would be you two," he indicated Annabeth and Jackson, "honestly. Dating you're own..." he muttered something in a different language, something that caused Annabeth and Jackson to turn lovely shades of red, and Thalia to say "well, now that you put it that way...".

The rest of us exchanged looks. They had taken the most terrifying group of Dark Wizards and laughed them down. Who were these kids? And the way Nico had reacted to Malfoy? I sat there, mulling through my thoughts, until the train stated to slow down.

We were at Hogwarts. I was finally where I belonged.

*(**haha, get it? Thalia was the Muse of Comedy? Ya know? Oh, well...).**

*****(**Okay, I know there's not ten seats per compartment, but just bear with me here, okay?)**

***Chapter seven of my story Unheroic Deeds will be about Nico's first encounter with Death, and why he knows that Death doesn't taste good. It'll be up soon, I promise...**

**Anyway, I know the Draco meeting was crappy. I got kind of stuck. I'd really appreciate it if you reviewed- it helps me improve my writing, therefore creating a better story. A win-win situation, and all you have to do is review!**

**BTW, you should check out Dark Phoenix by Lightningscar. It's extremely good. It's not your average "Nico goes on a quest to destroy the Horcruxes" story. Not that I'm putting down all those stories. I'm just saying this one is really unique. **

**Silver out.**


	5. Pterodactyls and Tempermental Hats

**Sorry about the wait, guys. I had to go drop off my sister at college. 400 miles each way! School is started like two days ago, so my updates won't be so fast. Sorry…**

**Oh, and I changed my mind. The Giant War **_**has**_** happened, but they're still the same age. Get it? Got it? Good. Keep it. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything in this story.**

Chapter Five: Pterodactyls and Temperamental Talking Hats

Percy POV

The train slowed down and came to a stop. Harry had this really odd look on his face, like he was dreaming. A good dream, mind you. Not a demigod dream. Hermione and Ron had to do their prefect duties, so Harry, Ginny, Luna and Neville led us out of the compartment, and into the mass chaos that reigned outside.

"Follow us!" Ginny shouted over the din. We were going great up until we got to the carriages.

Harry stopped short, causing Nico, who was walking behind him, to walk into Harry. We looked at what Harry was looking at while the others got into the supposedly horseless carriage.

They weren't exactly horses, but they weren't exactly reptiles, either. The only thing that I was sure about was that they were dead. They reminded me a lot of pegasi, like if Blackjack died, or something.

Slowly, Harry walked towards the things. The closest one looked at Harry, then focused its attention on me and Nico. _My Lords_, it said, bowing its head slightly.

Nico and I looked at each other in surprise. "Did…you just hear… it talk?" Nico asked hesitantly.

"Yeah," I responded. "Why, did you hear it too?"

Nico's eyes were wide as he nodded. "That's…not normal."

I nodded and refocused my attention back on the thing. I studied it more closely. It had the skeleton of a horse, with reptilian wings and dead eyes.

"What are you?" I asked the creature quietly. _I am a thestral,_ it responded. I thought. Wasn't that what the core of Nico's wand was made of?

"Nico," I said slowly, "I think we just found you some neutral ground."

Meanwhile, Ron and Hermione arrived, looking slightly breathless.

"Malfoy's already pushing a First Year around," Ron said with a substantial amount of distaste. "By the way, where's Pig? Hello? Harry?"

Harry snapped out of a trance. He was still looking at the Thestrals. "What?"

"Where's Pig?" Ron repeated.

"Oh, that Luna girl took care of him," Harry muttered distractedly.

Ron looked only slightly relieved. "Okay. Thanks." They climbed into the carriage and us demigods got into the one behind it.

We sat in relative silence, save for the sounds of a moving carriage and the slight rustling of four ADHD teenagers trying to sit still. Up until we got out first glance of Hogwarts. Gods, that name still makes me choke…

Annabeth gasped and her eyes got extremely big. "Look! Look!"

The rest of us leaned over to look out the window. I had to admit, the castle was magnificent. After five years of listening to lectures on architecture, I was finally able to point out a few major parts.

Nico frowned slightly. His experiences with castles and palaces haven't been too good for him. Then his eyes narrowed and he leaned forward slightly. The rest of us waited with baited breath. Usually when Nico goes all silent and suspicious like that, something bad is about to happen.

A minute later, he slumped back. "Ghosts," was all he said.

Thalia frowned. "Ghosts? Here?"

Nico nodded. "I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure that there's more than one."

I was confused. "Is that good or bad?"

Nico shrugged. "It depends. Some ghosts can be very annoying, like the ones Melinoe sends out." Thalia and I shuddered. Melinoe, goddess of ghosts, was not our favorite person. "Others can be harmless- usually the people too scared to move along into Death."

Nico summed up his analysis. "So, that means that this school had either a lot of cowards, a lot of murderers, or a really powerful child of Hades who didn't know his strengths."

"Is there an option D?" I asked. Nico smiled a little, but didn't answer.

The carriage slowed to a stop and we got out. I thanked the thestrals. Nico still looked really freaked out that a horse-thing could talk to him.

We followed the older students into a front hall. We were about to follow them into the Great Hall, when an old witch (and I don't mean that disrespectfully) stopped us. "Jackson! Di Angelo! Chase! Miss Thalia!" she called out. "Follow me, please!" I realized she was Professor McGonagall. I hadn't recognized her in robes and a pointy hat. She led us into a smaller room full of little eleven year olds.

"Did I really look like that two years ago?" Nico muttered in my ear, referring to the scared-looking First Years.

"Totally," I muttered back. "Right down to the cowlick," I added, indicating a very young looking boy with a very large cowlick.

Nico scowled and punched my arm. "Shut up."

I rubbed my arm where Nico had punched it. "What the Hades are your knuckles made of? No wonder Malfoy left the compartment quickly."

I turned my attention to Professor McGonagall, who was explaining what we were going to be doing. Then she led us out of the room and into the Great Hall. Annabeth, Thalia, Nico, and I hung back at the end of the line and tried to look inconspicuous. I didn't work. Students were pointing and staring at us like we were Medusa's children.

"Didn't anyone ever tell them that pointing is rude?" Thalia whispered to the rest of us. I bit my lip to refrain from laughing.

"So much for being inconspicuous," Annabeth grumbled, looking at the floor.

"You can say that again," Nico said.

"Alright," I said. "So much for being-"

Thalia smacked my head. "He didn't mean it literally!"

Needless to say, we were a little surprised to find oout that the grubby old hat _talked_. It kind of reminded me of our old oracle. First, the hat sang a song about death and despair and uniting the houses. Then it started sorting the first years. Occasionally it would yell out one of the houses, and the first year would scamper off, looking very relieved.

Finally, we were the only ones left. This really old guy stood up. Next to me, Nico made a disgruntled sound. I assumed this was Professor Dumbledore. He spread his arms. "Students! This year, we have the honor of welcoming four transfer students from America. I expect their houses to welcome hem with open arms and to help them settle in. Professor McGonagall, please begin their sorting."

Professor McGonagall cleared her throat and read out, "Di Angelo, Nico!"

Nic cocked an eyebrow and sauntered up to the stool. He sat down and McGonagall placed the hat on his head.

Nico POV

I got a bad feeling as soon as I sat down on that stool. It got worse when I put the hat on.

_Well, well, well, what have we got here? A demigod, eh?_

I could have sworn I jumped about five feet in the air. What the Hades?

_Not what you were expecting, eh? _The hat spoke in my mind again.

_Obviously not,_ I thought back.

_Well, no matter. The main matter is what House to put you in. Let's see… ooh, a son of Hades? I've never met a demigod, let alone a son of Hades._

_Just get on with it,_ I thought, _I've got better things to do than talk to a hat. Wow. That makes me sound like I'm going crazy._

_How do you know you're not? _I could swear there was a note of amusement in the hat's voice.

_GET ON WITH IT!_ I mentally exclaimed.

_Alright, alright, no need to be snippy. I'll have to take a look into your mind, though. _

_You do _not_ want to go there,_ I warned. I put up mental barriers around some of my more precious- and disturbing- memories. The hat started to sort through the other ones.

_Hm… death, death, the dead, death… do you spend any time around living people? Oh, yes, I see… brave. Very brave. And cunning. And a few anger management issues. (_I gripped the sides of the stool). _Oh, what's this? A war? TWO wars? But you're barely fourteen! Hm… difficult decisions. You're very loyal to your friends. And a powerful enemy…_

_Any day now… _ I thought.

_Well then, I think you'd do well in… _SLYTHERIN! The hat shouted out the last part. I threw the hat off, very greatly relieved. There was a round of applause from the Slytherin table, and I made my way over there.

I passed Malfoy on my way to the end of the table. Somehow, he was able to sneer at me with the large multicolored bruise on his jaw. I rolled my eyes. "Watch it, Mlalfoy. Otherwise I might have to rearrange your face for you. That little bruise right there is only the beginning," I muttered so quietly only he could hear. The sneer slid off his face. I moved on to sit with a couple of kids who looked my age. They greeted me with slight nods. I focused my attention on Annabeth who was up next.

"Chase, Annabeth!" Annabeth walked calmly up to the stool and sat down.

Annabeth POV

Nico's facial reactions during his Sorting were rather amusing. So I figured I was prepared for whatever came up next. So not true.

As soon as I sat down, the hat said, _Oh, another one? How fun!_

No wonder Nico jumped like a fish out of water. Whatever I had been expecting, it wasn't that.

_Oh, good. You're not as touchy as the other one. This will be much easier. _Trust Nico to resist. Before I knew it, the hat was prodding into my mind, pulling out memories I had nearly forgotten. _You are quite like the other one. Loyal, and brave, too. A dangerous opponent. But extremely smart, and wise. Oh, I see. A daughter of Athena. Ravenclaw might be good for you. Or maybe Gryffindor. Let me see… Ran away when you were seven… very accomplished with the dagger… faced heartbreak and found love in another place… you've been through two wars as well? What world do you live in?_

I was dumbstruck.

_Well, I think it's obvious that you belong in… _RAVENCLAW!

I took off the hat, highly relieved. There was a large round of applause from what I assumed was the Ravenclaw table. I made my way over there. I sat down and several kids congratulated me.

Thalia's POV

"Er, Gr-" Professor McGonagall began, but I cut her off.

"It's Thalia. Just Thalia." I reinforced my statement with a specialty glare. McGonagall backed down.

"Alright. Thalia." I walked over to the stool and sat down. McGonagall placed the hat on my head.

_Oh, let me guess: you're a demigod as well? Oh, a daughter of Zeus… hmm…_

I was a little surprised, but I've faced weirder things than talking hats. Like talking mummies, or old ladies who like to cackle. Now that's scary.

_Let me see…Oh, just like the other two: incredibly brave and loyal. And a good amount of evil plots in that little noggin of yours…_

_Excuse me? _I thought. _Little noggin?_

_Ooh, and you're touchy like the other one. You would do well in Slytherin as well. But that's not the right choice for you, no…Definitely not Ravenclaw… Nor Hufflepuff, but you do have the loyalty of one. And you have been through the wars, too. Which leaves Gryffindor or Slytherin…_

I gripped the sides of the stool. What if Nico had been right? He had been joking, but what if I really didn't fit into any house?

_Oh, no, I'll find a place for you, _the hat promised. _In fact, I think Gryffindor is the right place for you. Well then… _GRYFFINDOR!

"Thank the gods," I muttered. I walked over to the table that was roaring. Ha. How appropriate. Their mascot is the lion.

I slipped into a seat next to Ginny and the others. The Weasley twins introduced me to their friend Lee Jordan. I ignored him. Finally Percy was up.

"Perseus, Jackson," McGonagall called out. I could easily hear Percy correct her, "It's Percy." He walked over to the stool and sat down. Immediately, the hat screamed,

"Another one? Merlin's beard, how many of you are there?"

Percy POV

The hat just about blasted my ears off. _That's it; I can't take it,_ it continued, much quieter this time. _You children need therapy._

_Been there, done that, got the t-shirt,_ I thought. _Any more advice?_

_Don't be smart with me. I'm supposed to be sorting you. Let's see…Loyal, very loyal. In fact, that's your fatal flaw. Gotten you into lots of trouble. You were the hero of two wars, no?Ah, the same wars your friends have been in. Not so smart, are you? _

_Excuse me? _I thought.

_But a worthy opponent and you are outstandingly brave. _The hat continued. _I know the right place for you._ GRYFFINDOR!

"That was quick," I muttered as I slipped off the hat. I was walking down the stairs to sit with Thalia, when the hat called after me,

"Yes. That was quick. You were much simpler than the others. Perfect for Gryffindor."

I froze and slowly turned around. There was definitely a note of contempt in the hat's voice. "Okay then," I said and turned back around.

Thalia moved over to let me sit down. I took the offer gratefully and sank down to the bench.

"What was that about?" she asked me as soon as I got situated. She looked agitated, almost like she was ready to pulverize someone.

"Just a temperamental talking hat," I replied, and glanced over at Nico. He was sitting close to the end of the Slytherin bench, watching me. I gave him a look; he nodded curtly, and turned back to his new housemates.

The Weasley twins thumped me on the back. "Congratulations! We knew you were going to join us!"

Dumbledore stood up. "Now that we are all sorted, I would like to inform you of a few changes in the staff. I would to give a warm welcome to Professor Grubbly-Plank, who will be filling in for Hagrid as Care of magical Creatures teacher, as Hagrid is away for the time being. Also, I would like to welcome our new Defense Aginst the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Umbridge. This year-"

"_Hem, hem_," the new professor 'coughed'. Dumbledore stopped, and everybody in the Great Hall gawked at her. It was obvious that nobody interrupted Dumbledore when he was speaking. The stout little woman stood up and walked to the front of the teachers' table.

"She was at my hearing!" Harry exclaimed, half whispering.

"How nice it is to be back at Hogwarts," Professor Umbridge began. "And how nice it is to see all your happy faces smiling back at me." Thalia and I exchanged a glance. Nobody, and I mean nobody, not Nobody, was smiling. Pun intended. After that, I zoned out, waiting for dinner. In fact, it seemed like everyone safe for a select few had zoned out as well. Maybe they're all ADHD like me.

After the feast, we followed the student body out of the Great Hall and into the corridors. With a few glances around me, Thalia and I met up with Nico and Annabeth in a secluded corner. Nico looked slightly pissed and Annabeth was frowning, her grey eyes stormy.

"You two look annoyed," I said mildly. They rolled their eyes.

"Umbridge will be a tough nut" was all Annabeth said. Nico pulled me away from the girls. When he judged we were far enough away, he started whispering to me.

"Okay, first of all, there are _hundreds_ of ghosts here. Aside from the fact that they _aren't _supposed to be here, we can use them to our advantage. Ghosts have information. we can use them to find out where the horcruxes might be. The problem is that they cower in fear whenever they get close to me. I had to order the Bloody Baron to not blow my cover." He rolled his eyes. "Also, I think I may have found the first horcrux."

"Really?" I said, getting excited. Nothing like a good fight with an illegal soul to get your heart pumping. "Where?"

Nico looked troubled. "That's the thing. Unless I'm wrong, I think a small part of detached soul is clinging to Harry's own soul."

"On one hand, that makes no sense at all. On the other hand, that would explain why you always got headaches when we were around Harry."

Nico nodded. "See my problem? Oh, and one more thing. This is important. Volde-"

"Di Angelo! What are you doing?" somebody called out, making me miss what Nico had said. We both spun around to face the potential threat. It was a boy about my age, maybe a little younger. He had a tall, thin body with shoulder-length black hair and intense cerulean blue eyes. That was all I could tell from a distance.

"Logan," Nico relaxed. "Just a minute." He turned back to me. "Now, back to what I was saying-"

"Jackson!" This time, I recognized the caller. It was Lee Jordan, the Weasley twins' friend. "Come on, we gotta go!"

"One sec," I called out. But I didn't get one second. Logan walked over to us, glared at me and Lee, and dragged Nico away. Lee did the same.

"What are you doing?" Lee hissed. "We never converse with the enemy. Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, yeah, but _never_ Slytherins. I'll give you a break this time,

'cause you're new, but next time…" he warned.

Hades. How was I supposed to find out what Nico was trying to tell me?

**Whew! I'm done! I made that one extra long to compensate for the wait. Didja like? If so, tell me in a review! I know the sorting is a bit cliché, but what am I supposed to do?**

**Also, I got this idea for another fic. Here's the idea, and I'd love it if you told me if I should write it.**

**Summary: **The demigods didn't win the Titan War. Percy was killed by Ethan. When Kronos took over, the demigods got scattered. Nico is one of the survivors. Eight months after the war, Nico discovers that his father, along with several other gods who escaped- some minor, some major- have convened a new council- the Underground Council- in Hades' palace, where they are safe. All this time, they have been plotting to overthrow Kronos and start anew. Nico gets sent on a quest to gather up all surviving demigods.

**Whadaya think? Would you read it?**

**Silver out!**


	6. Chapter 6 part 1

**OMG I'm so sorry! I did not drop off the face of the earth. School started, and I'm doing cross country, soccer, and dance, and I'm taking all honors courses, which means tons of homework, and when I get the chance, I sleep. So I haven't had any time to update. This isn't a full update, either, just the first part of the sixth chapter.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything written by Rick or JK.**

**Oh, and by the way, despite what happens in this chapter, there will NOT be a Nico/OC pairing. I don't believe in those pairings. **

Chapter 6 part 1:

Logan POV

What was that kid thinking, talking to a Gryffindor? Unless he wanted to get pulverized by those egomaniac idiots, of course. And it's not like he can exactly defend himself. I could probably beat him in a Muggle fight.

I led Nico down to the Slytherin common room. He nodded appreciatively.

"Not bad," he said. "Reminds me a bit of home."

I glanced around the room. Everything was dark and gloomy, like your stereotypical pureblood house. Everything was tinted green, the result of being under the lake.

I wasn't really sure what to say. "That's good," I managed.

Not many people were in the common room. A couple of seventh years sat huddled in a corner. Malfoy was surrounded by his usual posse. Two girls from my year, Vivian and Kiana, walked past us on their way to the girls' dorms.

"Hello, Logan," they greeted.

I nodded to them. "Vivian, Kiana," I said. "How were your holidays?"

Vivian nodded. "They were okay. Visited my father a few times." Vivian's father, by the way, was a Death Eater who had gotten caught and was now sitting in a dusty cell at Azkaban. Meanwhile, Kiana's dark eyes flitted over to Nico, taking in his appearance in all of three seconds. I had no idea how she was able to do that. Seriously, one glance and she knew practically everything about the person.

"And you, Kiana? How was the summer?" I asked her.

"Boring as usual," she responded in her listless voice. Nico studied her with those unnerving deep black eyes. He took in her petite figure, golden skin, and her glossy black hair that fell in loose ringlets. Here and there, bright blue contrasted with the black.

"What?" she asked him, eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

Nico shook his head. "Nothing," he reassured her. "You just look like… someone I know."

Kiana raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow. "Really? I don't meet many people who look like me. What's her name?"

Nico looked uncomfortable, like he'd just let something slip. "Oh, you wouldn't know her. She lives in California. Her name's Hazel. Hazel Levesque."

For a minute, Kiana looked shocked, and then her emotionless mask fell back in place. But the recognition was there, and Via and I both noticed it.

**So how's that for a little mini chap to keep you happy? I know its short and a little boring, but that information is very important for the future. Kep hanging in there; I'll have the full chap up ASAP!**

**-Silver**


	7. Chapter 6 part 2

_**She runs into the room, gasping for breath and throws herself into the chair in front of her desk. There's no time to catch her breath. Behind her, in the distance, she can hear yells and screams. It reminds her of the bread riots in the French Revolution. With no time to spare, she opens up a Word document and her fingers fly over the keyboard. **_**They're screaming for bread, ****_she thinks. _If they want bread, LET THEM EAT CAKE! **

**I AM SO SORRY! I CAN'T EVEN BEGIN TO DESCRIBE IT... I would have updated on October 2nd, but this is what I did that day: stood for four hours at a cross country meet in the rain and cold to cheer on my teammates. Fun, right? But anyways, you want bread? I'll give you cake. Sorry, we're doing the French Revolution in my World Civilizations class. **

**On with the story!**

Chapter Six: 

"That's odd," Kiana said. "I had a distant relative named Hazel. She lived in America, too. But that was nearly sixty or seventy years ago."

I wasn't sure if that was supposed to make Nico relax, but instead it made him even more stiff. "Huh. That is odd. But I assure you, the Hazel I know is only thirteen." I wasn't really sure what made me so positive that he was hiding something. It wasn't his stance, or his tone of voice, or anything. It was like a shield had gone up over his eyes, making them unreadable.

Kiana shrugged and stared at Nico a little longer. Then she turned away abruptly, heading to the girls' dormitories. Via sent me an apologetic look, and scampered after Kiana.

"Come on," I told Nico and led him to the boys' dormitories. We descended a staircase and entered room number 7. Nico stopped in the doorway to observe the room. It was dark, per usual, with a fireplace set into the wall, a fire crackling warmly. There were only four beds, instead of the usual five. Actually last year there had only been three: me, Alec, and Patrick. Now there was a fourth bed in the farthest corner. Next to it was a black trunk with the name Nico di Angelo engraved on the top. Leaning against one of the bedposts was a sleek black case, like something that might hold a broomstick. Nico noticed it.

He gave a short, unhumored laugh and strode over to it. "You really think of everything, don't you?" he muttered to no one in particular. He read the note attached to the bag, then stuffed the bag under his bed.

I pretended to busy myself with my own trunk, all the while keeping my eye on Nico. He wasn't doing anything, just reading a small black book with intense concentration. "What's that?" I asked, straightening up.

Nico looked up. "What?" he asked blankly. "Oh, um, it's just a book my dad lent to me." He went back to reading.

At that precise moment, my two roommates walked in. Alec cocked his dark-haired head as he observed Nico.

"Hey, so I hear you're the new kid. What's you're favorite color?" he asked. Alec was probably the thinnest, most intriguing boy in the history of mankind. His sense of style was like no other- he was into Muggle fashions (scarves, thin-legged jeans, graphic tees) and acted completely and utterly gay. He's not gay, though. Not that I'm against gays or anything. Have you ever noticed that gay guys have the best sense of humor?

Patrick rolled his eyes. "You really need to stop asking people that, Alec," he complained. Patrick was tall, topping six feet, with curly light brown hair and an Irish complexion.

Nico looked at Alec queerly. "I don't suppose the black clothing gives anything away, does it?"

Alec smiled broadly. "Brilliant! He has a sense of humor! I love those kind of guys!"

Patrick and I shared a silent glance. Alec meant it when he said he loved those kind of guys. It wouldn't be the first time he'd said that.

"Er, anyway," I intervened. "We should probably go to bed. Nico probably had a long day."

There was a general murmuring of assent as we started moving around our room, getting ready to go to bed. I made sure that I had a clean pair of robes to wear tomorrow, and basically climbed right into bed. However, I didn't fall asleep. Instead, I thought about Nico and his odd behaviors.

Nico POV

The next morning, Logan woke me up and dragged me up to the Great Hall before I was even fully awake. I don't know why they call it the Great Hall. I mean, sure, it's big, but I've seen bigger. MUCH bigger.

Breakfast was delicious, if I do say so myself. I enjoyed eggs, bacon, toast, hash browns, and something that I wasn't sure what it was, but Alec insisted on me trying it. It was good.

The entire time, I kept my eye on Percy and Thalia. I wondered if I was ever going to get a chance to talk to Percy. The rivalry between Slytherins and Gryffindors was evident, so I was beginning to have my doubts.

Professor Snape came to our table and started handing out schedules, or timetables, as everyone seemed to call them. I looked at mine.

"Ancient Runes, double Potions, History of Magic, double Defense Against the Dark Arts..." I trailed off. That last class didn't sound too good. Isn't the stuff I do kind of considered _dark_? So wouldn't that make it Defense Against Myself? That will be an interesting class.

Logan leaned over to look at my schedule. "We've got mostly the same classes, but I have Divination when you have Ancient Runes." He grinned. "Good luck with that class. I hear it's really hard."

I rolled my eyes. "Fun," I said.

Chapter Six part three of three

Thalia POV

Percy and I both had History of Magic first period, so we quickly finished our breakfast and followed Harry, Ron, and Hermione to the classroom. They quickly chose seats next to the windows in the back of the classroom. Percy and I sat in front of them. Other students trickled in, some still trying to enjoy their breakfast, signs of sleepiness still evident on their faces and they way they had gotten dressed. The last person to enter the classroom came through the chalkboard.

I kid you not.

Our teacher was a ghost.

Oh, the irony.

If only Nico was here.

Percy and I shared a glance and burst into silent snickers. The teacher introduced himself as Professor Binns to us and promptly pulled out a stack of note cards. As soon as he started reading from them, people lost interest and started doing whatever they pleased- which was mostly sleeping on their desks. Hermione was the only one who actually took notes. Big surprise there.

I was actually quite surprised to find that I stayed conscious for the entire class period. Binns' voice droned on and on like... I don't know. It was indescribable. Percy was out within five minutes. Typical.

When the bell finally rang, everyone surged towards the doorway like rush hour in New York. The Gryffindors headed down several flights of stairs towards the Potions classroom.

"Where is the Potions classroom?" I asked Hermione.

"It's in the dungeons," she responded. "Professor Snape seems to like the cold."

Percy and I shared a glance, having a telepathic conversation that went something like this:

Me: _Snape kind of reminds me of someone I know..._

Percy: _Same here. Someone who wears a lot of black, has no emotions,and is as cold as an iceberg..._

Me: _Are you thinking what I'm thinking?_

Percy: _Revenge time... _

We shared a grin. We lined up with all the other Gryffindors on one side of the hallway. On the other side stood the Slytherins. I noticed Nico was standing with that same kid from last night- Logan, was it? Yeah, Logan. They were having an intense discussion about something. Draco was there, too, and I was pleased to note that his jaw was a beautiful assortment of colors. I still wasn't sure why Nico had gotten so angry, but it was satisfying to see the bruise.

Snape opened the door to the dungeon room and we walked in, the Slytherins energetic, the Gryffindors... well, they could have done a bit of a better job.

Percy and I picked a table close to the back of the room, somewhat near Nico, who happened to be paired up with a very energetic dark-haired slim boy. Logan and his partner cast them worried looks every so often. The boy was talking animatedly, and Nico looked slightly amused.

"Settle down, class," Snape said so quietly it almost came out as a hiss. Nico's partner immediately stopped chattering. Percy and I shared another look. Percy grabbed a scrap of paper and looked for something to write with. He searched his pockets for a pen, but he only succeeded in bringing out Anaklusmos. He stuffed that away quickly. The next thing he brought out was a feather. We collapsed into silent laughter. Seriously, you would think that wizards would be a little more... advanced... than using a bird to write down their ideas. Haven't they ever heard of PENS?

A dark figure loomed over us. "Is there a problem?" Snape growled quietly.

Percy looked up. "Oh, no. No problem at all. Why do you ask?" he said, poker-faced. Unfortunately, I couldn't keep my straight face. I bit my lip as my mouth strained to stay in a straight line.

"Don't disturb my class again. Otherwise you will find yourselves in detention."

"Wouldn't be the first time," Percy muttered. I kicked his shin. "Ah, I mean, oh boy! I wouldn't want to get in detention!"

I brought my fingers up to my temple and shot myself with a finger gun. "You're hopeless."

Percy pretended to bow. "Thank you. I try." I gripped his forearm and sent a shock through him. He made a very unmanly yelp. "Alright. I'm done."

"Good," Snape hissed. He turned away and Percy continued his search for a pen. He found one at the bottom of his bag. He scribbled down something in Ancient Greek and handed the paper to me.

It read: _Reasons why Snape could be your brother: 1. You both wear black. 2. You have no sense of humor. 3. You just are no fun at all. 4. When you get angry, it's quite__...__ terrifying. 5. Your hair is black. 6. Your eyes are scary. And 7. REVENGE!_

I smiled and folded the paper into an airplane. And I don't mean one of those lousy paper airplanes that mortals make. I'm talking about a full-out model airplane, complete with maneuverable wings for maximum flight potential. I then controlled the air currents and sent the plane floating over to Nico, who caught it suspiciously. He opened it carefully, like it might explode if opened too quickly.

We watched his eyes flick over the paper as he read it. Then he looked up at us and mouthed something that I'm not allowed to pass on. Let's just say that Percy's reaction was a low whistle and "He's spending too much time around Sissy".

Snape put the directions up on the chalkboard with a flick of his stick. Hey, that rhymes! But anyway... I immediately could tell that I couldn't read it. First of all, it was small. Secondly, it was in cursive. Thirdly, it was far away. Percy must have realized that, too, because he quietly walked over to Nico and his partner and looped his arm around Nico's neck.

"So, Nico, ol' buddy, ol' friend... how do you feel about sharing your partner's knowledge with your favorite people, huh?" he said in a straight face.

Nico scowled and pushed Percy off. "Go find your own friend to translate for you," he muttered.

Percy's eyes widened. He walked back to our table as if in a daze. "Let's go ask Hermione to help us," was all he said to me before walking over to Hermione.

About halfway through the class, Snape announced that our potions should be emitting a light silver vapor. I looked around. Somebody's was emitting a heavy purple gas. I wondered of that was dangerous. Ron's had green sparks. Harry's had a dark gray vapor. Hermione's, of course, was perfect. I looked over at Percy's. He was scratching his dark messy hair, trying to figure out why why his potion wasn't emitting _anything_. At least mine had a light white mist over it, kind of like a cloud. Something caught my eye. I nudged Percy and pointed at Nico. His face was one of the utmost concentration. His potion had, believe it or not, a light silver vapor emitting from it. His partner's was, too. As we watched, they gave each other as high five.

Snape stopped in front of Harry. They talked quietly, then Harry said quite loudly, "I forgot the syrup of Hellebore." Snape flicked his stick again, and Harry's potion disappeared.

At the end of the class, Snape said, "Everybody bring a sample of your potions up to my desk for grading. After that, you are dismissed."

Percy and I brought up samples of our potions then cleaned up our mess. As soon as the bell rang, Harry was flying out of the classroom. Hermione and Ron exchanged glances and sprinted out of the classroom, too.

We walked up to the Great Hall for lunch. Harry wasn't there, but Hermione and Ron were sitting in separate parts of the table, not talking. When Nico and his three friends walked past, Percy stood up and stopped Nico. He grabbed Nico's shoulders and shook him.

"Who are you, and what have you done with Nico di Angelo?" Percy cried out. Nico tried to take a step back but Percy's grip was strong.

"Uh, Percy? What are you doing?" I asked him, trying to get him to take his hands off the Son of Hades (who happened to be looking very worried, by the way).

Percy turned to me. "Seriously? First, he laughs. Now, he's making _friends_. And he actually made that potion thing right! What's wrong with this picture?"

I thought about that. "Point," I said, "but he's probably going through another one of his midlife crisis."

Nico raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me? Another one of my midlife crisis? I wasn't even aware that I had one before."

Percy rolled his eyes. "Dude, it's mentally impossible to go from a happy, energetic, annoyingly hyper ten-year-old to what you've been for the past couple of years in a week. It's just. Not. Possible."

"And that's what you think a midlife crisis is? Have you met my dad?"

Percy and I shared a look. "Uh, yeah," we said at the same time.

Behind Nico, his friends were tense. Behind Percy, Annabeth appeared, eyes stormy.

"Um, guys, an argument right now would _not_ be a good idea," she said. "So how about you all go sit down before something bad happens," she suggested.

Percy turned around to face his girlfriend. "Maybe you don't understand. Somebody has taken over Nico. He's laughed, made friends, and actually did something right in class," Percy explained, counting off the things on his fingers.

"And according to Thalia, I'm going through _another_ midlife crisis when I wasn't even aware that I had one in the first place," Nico added.

Annabeth's cheeks got pink, and I got the feeling that she was trying really hard not to laugh. "Yeah. You should go sit down before anything happens," she repeated. She grabbed Percy's arm. "Come on, Seaweed Brain," she said and dragged him back to the Gryffindor table. I looked at Nico one last time, shook my head, and followed them. Nico's friends dragged him over to the Slytherin table.

After lunch, we checked our schedules then followed Ron up to the Divination tower. Percy and I were both curious about the Divination teacher. How could she read the future if there was only one Oracle, and she was back in America wearing a dress and learning how to eat a salad? (No offense to Rachel, or anything.)

I got a bad feeling when we reached the trapdoor. It got worse when we discovered that the Divination room was an attic/thrift shop hybrid. It seemed like a good home for a monster. Particularly one that was disguised as an old lady.

"Welcome, class," Professor Trelawney appeared from behind an overstuffed chair. She looked like an over sized doll that had been terrorized by a demonic child. Sorry, my imagination gets a little wild at times.

Harry POV

I was kind of happy to see that two of the Americans were in Divination with me. Maybe Trelawney would lay off her predictions of my death and focus more on them.

She welcomed the two Americans, then gasped. She pointed at Jackson. "You... you should have died long ago." Her voice trembled.

Jackson raised an eyebrow. "My dog could have figured that out," he replied.

Thalia looked at him incredulously. "You have a dog?"

"No," he replied. "I was just trying to make a point."Thalia nodded, and they turned their attention back to Trelawney. "What else have you got?"

Trelawney turned to Thalia. She gasped. "My dear," she started, but Thalia cut her off.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I thought you were supposed to tell the future, not the past."

Trelawney tried to look dignified in her shawl. She stared right into Thalia's startling blue eyes. Thalia stared back. Trelawney took a step back. Her eyes got even more glassy than they already were. "_Three of power and descent/ Shall venture to the land unprecedented/ The Angel, the Myth, and the __Fear/ As one shall shed the tear/ They will choose revenge or family/ And hold the Fate of the society/ Only if they work as one/ Will they retrieve their own/ From the land of the Father/ And the power of the Pariah," _she said in a raspy voice.

Everybody looked scared. The Americans looked especially worried. Trelawney shook her head as if to clear it. "This semester, we, will be studying dreams. Please take out your copy of _Dream Oracle_ and read the introduction. Then continue in partners to study your dreams."

The introduction of the book was extremely boring and long. I could barely keep my eyes open. Instead, I listened to the Americans.

"You know, I thought this year was supposed to be _easy_," Thalia was saying. "Otherwise I wouldn't have listened to... Diana."

"Yeah. That prophecy worries me. I've had too many prophecies in my life. How do they expect three powerful people to work together?" Jackson added.

"You know, it almost sounds like they're talking about the Big Three."

Ah, well, let's not dwell on it. It'll begin at its own good time."

"Did you just say something... like, smart?" Thalia sounded incredulous.

"Annabeth's smartness tends to rub off on me."

"Apparently. Okay, what did you dream about last night?"

There was a silence.

"I take that back. I don't want to know what you were dreaming about last night," Thalia decided. Jackson laughed.

After what seemed like eternity, the bell rang. We headed out of the stuffy room on our way to Defense Against the Dark Arts.

**That was amazing! My writer's block is gone! I'm sorry, I'm having such good weekend. I got my Mark of Athena (I don't know... the reunion seemed kinda lame...), for once my soccer team didn't lose a game (that was one of the best games I'd ever played in the past couple years) and my writer's block is gone! Yayyayayayayayay!**

** Also, we reached over 140 reviews! Yay!**

** Silver out.**


	8. Lessons from Nico

**TOINEWF SO3W-09FNKWFOWHWROWHOIDFGFNVBOIEG IO... wow. Just wow. Look at that little blue number that is click-able up there. What number do you see? I see something in the 220's! You guys are awesome. **

**But ANYWAY... Here's where the stats stand:**

**Option 1: 13 votes**

**Option 2: 13 votes**

**Option 3: 22 votes**

**Option 4: 14 votes**

**Option 5: 10 votes**

**Option 6: 14 votes**

**SO it looks like Option 3 won (Thalia, Percy, and Nico run into Jason and go on a quest to find a prophecy child for those who are too lazy to go back to the last chapter). **

**GUESS WHAT PEOPLES!? Good news for everyone! Cross Country is over! What does that mean? ( can update this story faster! And I can update Unheroic Deeds, which I haven't touched in months! And I can try to post Romans Read The Last Olympian, which I said I would adopt from Paulinexoxo (who is now TheMoonCake)! Yay!**

**I've been writing this chapter during my studies, so it's not amazing... but I did my best! Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: If you had the the FAQ's on Rick's website, you would know that he doesn't read fanfiction. Therefore, I am not Rick. And I live in Massachusetts, so that rules out J.K. Rowling...**

Chapter 7: Lessons From Nico

(The real chapter title is MUCH longer, but I'm not going to bore you with it now after that long author's note)

Alec POV

Logan scowled as we ate our lunch.

"I thought I told you not to talk to those people," he said.

Nico smirked slightly. "You can't really expect me to not talk to my cousins, can you?" he asked.

Logan, Patrick, and I exchanged glances. "Those are your cousins?" Patrick asked incredulously, voicing our thoughts.

Nico nodded, then reconsidered his statement. "Well, Percy and Thalia are. You may have noticed that we have the same dark hair. Annabeth is more of a... second niece or something crazy like that." He noticed our faces. "You know what, let's just say they're my cousins. It's less confusing that way." He pushed his food around on his plate. "So why do you guys hate the Gryffindors so much?"

Patrick and I looked at Logan for him to explain. "They're extremely full of themselves," he answered briefly. "But what were you talking about? And why did Chase say an argument really wasn't a good idea" he pressed.

Nico shrugged. "Percy, Thalia, and I... we don't get along very much. Our arguments can get very dangerous. We've put each other at risk of death too many times. And if we got into a fight here, well, let's just say the hospital wing would be _really _busy."

Logan looked thoughtful. We finished our lunch and headed off to History of Magic with the Ravenclaws.

When we got there, most of the good seats in the back had been taken. The four of us ended up sitting right in the middle of the classroom. Nico sat in front of the Chase girl. They talked quietly.

The bell rang, signaling class had begun, and of course Professor Binns was nowhere in sight. Instead, he floating through the chalkboard like he always does, five minutes late. I guess the dead don't really keep track of time.

But when he _did_ come, there was a chain reaction. Nico caught sight of the old ghost and his head snapped around to stare at him. Professor Binns, surprised, back up quickly, resulting in tripping over his desk which he _should_ have been able to go through. This caused several people to snicker.

"Hello," Nico said mildly.

Binns scrambled to stand up. "Good afternoon, Mr. Di Angelo. I was not informed that you would be in this class," he managed.

"Well, here I am," Nico replied.*****

"Of course, of course..." Binns trailed off. He brought out his stack of note cards and began lecturing from them. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Nico scribbling something furiously onto a scrap of parchment. He passed it to Chase, who read it and scribbled something back. When Nico read it, he smirked and wrote a reply and gave it back to Chase. This time he received a kick to his chair, courtesy of a certain girl sitting behind him.

Class passed slowly, like always. I realized that Nico didn't like to be idle for more than about... oh, thirty seconds or so. Chase showed a bit more control, but it was obvious that she didn't like sitting for a long time either.

-Ooh look! What's this? Methinks it's a page break! Read it and weep people!-

Percy POV*

The four of us demigods sat in he farthest corner from the desk covered with frilly pink lace. It made us all cringe. Everybody else had their wands out, looking hopeful. We took ours out just for the sake of trying to fit in.

"I wonder what this class will be about," Annabeth said conversationally.

Thalia got an evil look. "Maybe we'll learn how to defeat Nico. Like where his ticklish spot is."*

Nico looked at her like she was crazy. "I'm not ticklish," he protested.

I decided to play along. "That's what you think, Nico. But Grover already told me where you are ticklish." I tried not to burst into laughter.

Now Nico looked downright confused. "Wait, what? I'm not... I don't... when did he tell you that?"

"So you admit it! You are ticklish!" Thalia proclaimed.

Nico shook his head furiously. "Who... What... gah! I'm so confused!"

At this point, I exploded into laughter, Thalia right behind me. Even Annabeth, who had been watching us with mild amusement, laughed. Nico realized we were playing with him and he chuckled.

"But anyway," Nico regained his composure, "If this class really is what it sounds like, then I'm doomed."

Thalia shook her head sadly. "Hate to break it to you kid, but you were doomed the day you were born."

"Hey, watch who you're calling kid," Nico warned.

"I am," Thalia replied seriously. "And right now, the view's not so great."

I stuffed my fist into my mouth to mask my laughter. The next thing I knew, I was on the floor, barely able to breath from laughter. Annabeth peered over her desk.

"You okay, Seaweed Brain," she asked through bouts of laughter. She gave me her hand and pulled me back into my seat. I looked behind me. Thalia was slumped over her desk, howling. Nico was repeatedly banging his head against the desk.

"I walked into that one, didn't I?" he asked Annabeth. Annabeth nodded, unable to talk because she was biting her tongue so hard, trying to keep her composure.

"_Hem hem,_" a high-pitched voice said. We turned around to see a pink-clad toad. The Aphrodite girls would have a heart attack if they saw her. "Good afternoon, class," she said.

A couple of people mumbled 'Good Afternoon' back, but apparently that wasn't good enough for Umbridge.

"Now, now, when I say 'good afternoon', I expect to hear everyone to reply 'good afternoon, Professor Umbridge'. Now let's try it again. Good afternoon, class," she said in her falsetto voice.

"Good Afternoon, Professor Umbridge," we chanted back. Teachers like these reminded me of everything I hated about school.

"Wands away, everyone. You won't be needing them in this class," she continued. "Please take out _A Defensive Magical Theory_. Has everybody got a copy?"

A few people mumbled yes.

"Tut, tut. That won't do. When I ask you a question, I expect you to reply 'yes, Professor Umbridge' or 'no, Professor Umbridge. Now, has everyone got a copy?"

"Yes, Professor Umbridge," we said dully.

Umbridge grinned widely. "That's much better. Now, please turn to chapter one, Basics for Beginners. There will be no need to talk."

I had already given up in this class. I didn't even bother opening up the book. I glanced at my friends. Annabeth was scowling at page five. Thalia was leaning on her elbow, pretending to be reading the book.

Five minutes passed. Nico had an evil grin forming on his lips. I shuddered. It was common knowledge that when Nico grinned like that, something bad was about to happen.

He kicked Annabeth's chair. His hands were cupped around something. Annabeth turned around, annoyed. _What_? Her eyes seemed to hiss. _Don't freak, _Nico mouthed. He slowly opened his hands, displaying a skeletal form of a spider.

I grabbed Annabeth's hand to keep her from screaming. Nico brought the spider up to his mouth and muttered something to it. Then he set it on the ground. The spider scuttled off.

It hesitated when it was near Annabeth, like it really wanted to attack her, but I guess Nico had given it orders because the dead spider continued up to the front classroom, catching the attention of the people it passed.

There was silence. Then...

"Aaaaagh!" Umbridge screeched, so high pitched that everybody cringed. She swatted at the spider that was crawling up her leg. I glanced back at Nico. His eyes were narrowed in concentration and his finger was flicking in the same directions that the spider was going.

"Nico, you're a genius. Terrifying, but a genius," I told him, who grinned, but kept concentrating on the spider.

"Are you trying to kill me?" Annabeth hissed.

Nico rolled his eyes. "Relax. I've got it under my control."

"But it doesn't have bones," Annabeth reminded him. That was new to me. Since when do spiders not have bones?

"It has an exo... extos... exaskel..." Nico searched for the word.

"Exoskeleton?" Annabeth supplied. "Honestly, I would have thought you would know that."

"Says the girl who didn't know how to spell cyclops," I put in my two cents.

Annabeth spun around. "Who's side are you on? And I'm pretty sure you _still_ can't spell cyclops."

I raised my hands in defense. "I'm just sayin'. And I know I can't spell it. I'm not the one who acts all smart with exotelkinetic or whatever it is."

"_Exoskeleton_," Nico and Annabeth said together. "Crap," Nico added when Umbridge succeeded in blasting the spider to bits with a funky spell. "But the point is, it's dead, and I can control it. So deal with it."

Umbridge sat back down. "Everybody go back to reading," she said. "There is still no need to talk."

About five minutes later, everybody's eyes were focused on Hermione, who hadn't even opened her book, like me, and had her hand raised. Umbridge ignored her.

After a minute or so, Umbridge decided that she couldn't ignore Hermione any longer.

"Yes, my dear?" she asked, falsely sweet. "Do you have a question?"

Hermione put her hand down. "Yes, I do. I noticed that in your list of goals that there was no mention of _using_ spells."

"Using spells?" Umbridge laughed. "I can't imagine any situation that would occur in this classroom in which you would need to use a defensive spell. Are you expecting to be attacked in class?"

"We won't be using magic?" Ron asked loudly.

"In this class, I expect students to raise their hands when they have a question, Mr.-"

"Weasley," Ron replied as he thrust his hand into Zeus' domain. Well, not really. But you get my point.

Umbridge smiled and turned her back on him.

"Well, _that's_ rude," Thalia noted mildly.

"Is there something you would like to say, Miss-" Umbridge narrowed her eyes at Thalia.

"Thalia," Thalia replied. "And no, there isn't anything I would like to say."

"I wasn't aware that you and Professor Umbridge were already on a first-name basis," Logan snickered. Umbridge somehow didn't hear him.

Umbridge turned away. Harry and Hermione both raised their hands.

"Yes, Ms. Granger? Would you like to ask something else?"

"Yes," Hermione put her hand down. "Isn't the whole point of Defense Against the Dark Arts to practice defensive spells?"

"Well, Miss Granger, this year you will be learning about defensive spells in a secure, risk-free way-"

"What's the point in that?" Harry exclaimed. "It's not like we're going to get attacked in a secure, risk-free way-"

"Hand, Mr. Potter!" Umbridge reprimanded him. Harry shoved his hand into the air. Other people had their hands in the air, too. Umbridge looked at Dean. "And your name is-"

"Dean Thomas," Dean replied.

"Well, Mr. Thomas?"

"It's like what Harry said. If we're going to be attacked, it won't be risk-free-"

"Are you expecting to be attacked in my class?" Umbridge asked sweetly.

"No, but-"

"It's always a possibility," Nico commented.

Umbridge's eyes snapped towards him. "What was that, Mr. di Angelo?"

Nico shrugged. "I'm just keeping an open mind over here. Don't mind me."

"Nico the Pessimist," Thalia muttered.

"Actually, no that's our wonderful cousin Percy," Nico said.

"Mr. di Angelo, I am aware that you are new here, but I assure you that all the same rules apply to you as well. Please raise your hand." Nico raised his hand. Umbridge ignored him. "I do not wish to criticize the way things have been in this school," she said, an unconvincing smile stretched across her face, "but you have been exposed to some very irresponsible wizards in this class, not to mention," she gave a little laugh, "extremely dangerous half-breeds. "

Annabeth stood up. She considered Chiron her adoptive father. Not to mention we were all dangerous half-breeds. Emphasis on dangerous. "I beg your pardon-"

"Sit down and when you have a question, raise your hand!" Umbridge exclaimed. Annabeth's hand shot up. "As I was saying, you have been frightened into thinking that you are likely to meet Dark attacks every other day-"

"No we haven't-" Hermione began.

"Hand, Miss Granger!"

Hermione put her hand up yet again.

Thalia leaned in to whisper in my ear, "I feel like this is that game where you flip over a cards and two other cards flip over. But in this case it's with hands. This is ridiculous!"

"I'm sure that if you study the theory hard enough, you will be prepared enough for the practical part of the OWL exam. There is no reason why you should not be able to perform the spells under a carefully controlled environment."

"And what good will the theory be in the real world?" Harry exclaimed, fist in the air.

"Mr. Potter, this is school. This is not the real world. And I assure you there is nothing out there waiting for you," Umbridge said softly.

"Don't be too sure," Thalia, Nico, Annabeth, and I said as one. Umbridge glared at us.

"I'm not sure about what your old school taught you-"

"Our old school taught us how to be able to defend ourselves for when we go out into the real world," Annabeth countered.

"Who could possibly want to attack children like yourselves?"

"Oh, I don't know... maybe _Lord Voldemort_?" Harry said in a mock thoughtful voice.

The reaction was instantaneous. Several people screamed. One person fell off his seat. Umbridge smiled at Harry. "Ten points from Gryffindor, Mr. Potter. Now class, you have been told that a certain wizard has returned from the dead-"

"He wasn't dead, but yeah, he's returned!" Harry said angrily.

"As I was saying," Umbridge continued without sparing Harry a glance, "This is a lie."

"It is NOT a lie!" Harry shouted. "I saw him, I fought him!"

"Detention, Mr. Potter!" Umbridge said triumphantly. "Tomorrow evening, five o'clock, my office."

I stood up angrily. "This is ridiculous! I don't know about over here, but in America, we have the freedom of speech!"

"Perhaps so, but I am sure that you also have to respect your teachers. Mr. Potter clearly hasn't respected me with that oh-so-rude outburst of lies." Umbridge gave me a teeny smile.

"They're not lies!" Harry stood up again.

Umbridge turned to him. "Mr. Potter, come up here." Harry complied, albeit reluctantly. Umbridge found a piece of pink paper and wrote something down. She gave him the letter. "Take this to Professor McGonagall." Harry stormed out of the room.

Annabeth yanked me back into my seat. "Don't even think about arguing with her. You don't want to be kicked out of here before we complete our quest, do you?"

There was complete silence for the rest of the class. When the bell rang, everyone rushed out of the class.

"Well that was interesting," Thalia noted.

*(**Okay, right here I was really tempted to make Nico say, "Please. Mr. di Angelo is my mother's **_**father**_**. Call me... 'Dah A'," but then I decided that would be too out of character for him. BTW, does anybody know where I got that from?**)

***(For the sake of the story, I'm pretending that they all have DADA together)**

*****(**Reference to chapter one of Unheroic Deeds) **

**When I started this chapter this morning, my Dad was still in his money-saving mode, so we hadn't turned on the heat yet. I kid you not, it was forty-three degrees in my house. My fingers were sliding off the keyboard. Now, I'm nice and warm. **

**I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Don't forget to review!**

**I'm thirty words away from 3,000 words, so I'm just gonna write random stuff for a little while... I don't feel like going to school tomorrow. I'm in creative mode...**

**-Silver out.**


	9. The Room of Really Radical Requirement

**So I hope you guys liked the last chapter! This chapter... I dunno really what's gonna happen. We shall see... **

**I reeeaaalllly want to do the chapter when Harry has to learn occlumency, but alas... that must wait. Or at least when Hermione decides to create Dumbledore's Army. **

**Sorry about the wait- my mom took the computer away from me. Oh, and I _will_ be getting to Romans Read the Last Olympian sometime, so don't freak out on me. **

**Disclaimer: Due to the fact that the author is currently throwing darts at pictures of Rick Riordan and J.K. Rowling, the reader is expected to gather that she is not either of them. **

Chapter 8:The Room of Really Radical Requirement 

Percy POV

"Do you guys want to go outside to do our homework?" I asked my demigodly friends. They exchanged a glance and shrugged.

"Sure, why not?" Annabeth said.

We walked out the front doors. The sun shone fiercely on us. It was pleasantly warm. We made our way down to the lake, passing several other students on the way. We sat down on the grass below a large tree. Annabeth cracked open the books immediately. I decided to wait a bit and soak up a little sun first.

"So how was you guys' electives?" Thalia asked, trying to make conversation.

Annabeth glanced up from her Charms book. She shrugged. "Muggle Studies is alright, I guess. A little boring."

"Why would you take Muggle Studies?" I asked her. "You live like a Muggle."

"Shut up," she growled. I smirked, knowing I had won. "What about you, Nico?"

Nico's dark eyes flicked over to her. "Ancient Runes is a joke."

"Now that, that makes sense," I said. "You are technically learning something while not having to work hard. And it sounds way more interesting than _Muggle Studies_."

Annabeth didn't say anything.

"Percy and I had Divination," Thalia said.

Annabeth looked up, interested. "Really? What was it like?"

Thalia leaned back on her elbows and stared at the bright blue sky. "Well, the teacher's a fraud. She focused on the past, saying that Percy should have died long ago and she noticed that I already had died. Not very good at _predicting _stuff." She frowned. "But when I asked her to tell us something about the future, she spoke a prophecy."

That caught the attention of Nico and Annabeth. They both sat up straight. "_What_?" Annabeth asked. "How could she? There's only one oracle. And only one 'augur'. How could she speak a prophecy?"

I shrugged. "Beats me. All I know is that it sounded pretty real to me. Not something that Mars would come up with. And when she spoke it, she went into this trance sort of thing. She had no recollection of it at all."

"What was it?" Nico inquired, eyebrows scrunched up.

"_Three of power and descent/ Shall venture to the land unprecedented/ The Angel, the Myth, and the Fear/ As one shall shed the tear/ They will choose revenge or family/ And hold the Fate of the society/ Only if they work as one/ Will they retrieve their own/ From the land of the Father/ And the power of the Pariah,_" Thalia recited. Well, someone has been thinking about it a lot.

"Well that sounds... dark," Nico commented.

"When does a prophecy _not_ sound dark?" Thalia rolled her eyes.

Nico was about to retort, when he noticed something behind me. He paled a little. "Oh, Styx," he muttered. "If anyone asks, I wasn't here," he said. Then he dissolved into a shadow, leaving the three of us very confused.

I turned around and noticed, low and behold, Nico's friends walking towards us. I recognized Logan and the boy who Nico had worked with during Potions, but I still didn't know his name. The third kid, the tall one, I had seen once or twice. As far as I knew, they weren't friends with Draco Malfoy- all the better for us. Maybe we could make some allies in the Slytherin department.

"Hey," Logan said, but he didn't seem very happy about it. "Have you seen, er, Nico at all?" his words seemed forced, like it was killing him to talk to us.

I remembered what Nico had told us. _If anyone asks, I wasn't here_. Obviously, Nico's friends weren't happy about Nico being friendly with the big, bad Gryffindors. "Not since Defense Against the Dark Arts," I told him, hoping my eyes didn't lie. I've been told (_cough *Annabeth* cough_) that I'm terrible at lying. Hey blame my mother for raising me to be an honest person. "Why?" I asked, turning the spotlight onto him.

Logan narrowed his eyes. "We can't seem to find him."

I shrugged. "He's probably in your room or something. He prefers quietness."

The tall kid kicked at the ground. "That means we should probably leave Alec behind," he joked. The other kid put his hands on his hips and made one of those girly "Ugh!" sounds. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Thalia turn away to face Annabeth. Judging by Annabeth's facial expression, Thalia must have looked hilarious.

"Okay, thank you," Logan replied stiffly. "Let's go, guys."

The trio walked off, heading back towards the castle. I noticed a very angry looking Harry Potter storm out the front doors and make his way over to us. I glanced up to him. "Hey," I said mildly.

"Hullo," Harry said angrily. His hands were in fists and his jaw was clenched. Something was bothering him.

"What put a twist in your toga?" I asked him.

He glared at the sparkling waters of the lake as he sat down next to us. "McGonagall did nothing. Absolutely nothing. I have to go to detention with Umbridge for the rest of the week." He groaned. "Who knows what she'll make me do."

"Probably something old-school," Thalia offered "helpfully". "Something excruciatingly tedious and difficult."

"You're not helping, Thalia," Annabeth chided.

Thalia looked at her like she was crazy. "I wasn't trying to help."

Harry cleared his throat. "Er, right. I should go find Ron and Hermione." We told him Bye and watched him stalk off.

Lalalalalala-Lalalalalalalalala-Lalalalalalalalala

That night, the four of us met outside the Gryffindor common room. We had made arrangements to explore the room Dumbledore had explained to us- he had called it the Room of Requirement. Apparently it could change to suit whatever your needs were, hence the "Requirement" part of the name. We had permission to use it for training purposes throughout the year. We just had to get in.

Annabeth arrived quietly, freaking me out by covering my eyes with her hands. Nico ghosted up to us, using the shadows as coverage from the roaming teachers. His sword was belted around his waist, and he looked much more comfortable than when he wasn't wearing it. Annabeth had her knife strapped to her thigh.

"Ready?" Annabeth whispered. We nodded and headed for the seventh floor.

"I hate these stairs," Thalia grumbled quietly when they began to change on us. She received some odd looks from Annabeth and Nico because they didn't know of her fear of heights. She still hadn't told them. I actually suspected that they had figured it out, but pretended they hadn't.

We made it to the third corridor, and studied the directions Nico had been given with a few extra weapons.

"Walk past the wall three times, thinking about what you need," Annabeth mumbled. She looked up at us. "Well? Let's walk."

We followed my girlfriend's orders, feeling like idiots. Thalia's eyes were scrunched up, Nico kept glancing at the wall, and Annabeth kept mumbling what she needed. We all stopped at the same time and spun to face the bare wall.

Well, it wasn't bare anymore.

The was a plain wooden door in the stone, looking very nonchalant. We glanced at each other, shrugged, and surged towards the door. Thalia wrenched the door open, and we flew in.

Let me put this simply: The Room of Requirement should be called the Room of Awesomeness. I felt like I had just walked into the training center in Hunger Games. Everything was shiny and new. A large assortment of weapons lined the far wall, along with four sets of armor (two of which were made of black leather). The floor was slightly squishy so crash landing wouldn't hurt so much. A spherical rock wall took center stage. And if you looked up, the air was interrupted by pieces of metal criss crossing, creating an obstacle course in the air. There were even fitness machines in a corner. Dummies were constructed in various parts of the room. The room itself was incredibly large. I had no idea how this would fit into a _wall_, but I wasn't asking questions.

"This is sick," Thalia breathed. I nodded, too impressed to speak.

"Well?" Annabeth demanded, "What are you guys waiting for? Let's begin!"

We naturally split off into two groups- Annabeth and me, Thalia and Nico. Thalia and Nico went off to do something, while Annabeth drew her knife. I uncapped Riptide.

"Ready?" she asked, crouching in a defensive position.

"Go!" I said. We circled each other a few times, waiting for the other person to go first. Finally, Annabeth darted in to stab at me. There was a clang and a swish while I deflected her knife with Riptide. I went in for a side stroke, but she jumped back, out of harm's way. Continuing my momentum, I witched my sword's direction and chopped at her feet, but Annabeth jumped over my sword gracefully, landing close enough to potentially stab me right in the heart.

Our sparring continued for a while, both of us trying to get the upper hand, but neither of us being able to achieve it. It ended with my sword pointed at her throat and her knife lightly touched my heart. Both of us were breathing heavily, and Annabeth's face was shiny from sweat. We looked at each other and broke into laughter. We lowered our weapons.

I lightly kissed Annabeth's forehead, but quickly recoiled. "Bleh!" I exclaimed. "Sweat tastes disgusting!"

Annabeth arched an eyebrow at me. "You know, a majority of girls would take offense to that," she told me.

I smiled. "You aren't like most girls though," I replied. She rolled her eyes. "Come on, let's go find the other two."

We looked around the room for a minute or so before finding Thalia and Nico in an area full of blocks. It looked like some giant baby had been playing with building blocks and they had tumbled into random positions. As we watched, Thalia leaped from one block to another, ran up the side of a wall and flipped, then swung around a set of bars like a monkey. Nico watched in fascination.

"Hey!" I called to Thalia, who paused, sitting on a giant block. "Watcha doing?"

"Demonstrating to Nico freerunning," she replied. "Ever tried it?"

"No."

"Sucks for you."

We watched her a bit longer, then decided to call it a night. Nico discovered a door, which led to a bathroom with showers. We quickly cleaned up before grabbing our lethal accessories and heading out the door.

We went back the way we came, keeping our eyes peeled for teachers. The occasional ghost stared at us, but quickly flew off when Nico glared at them. We were on the third floor when Annabeth, who had been in the lead, froze.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here, eh?" a voice sneered. "Students out of bed?"

A man stepped into the light of a burning torch, and low and behold, Filch the caretaker stood right in front of us, staring at Annabeth's knife gleaming in the torch's light.

**Dun, dun, dunnn! We have a cliff hanger! I bet you guys hate me. **

**I hope my fellow Americans had a good Thanksgiving. I went to my aunt's house, except she had to go to Florida on a business trip Thursday morning. So it was me, my mom, my dad, my sister (who came home from college!), my cousin, my other cousin, my other aunt, and my grandfather. It was pretty fun, except you couldn't walk into the kitchen without crying 'cause there was so much onion. **

**BTW, if you're ever cutting an onion, suck on a piece of white bread. It really helps. **

**-Silver out.**


	10. Please Excuse the Random Arguments

**Guten Tag, friends! (That's German for you). So, it came to my attention that I said "clicked his pen". I'M SO SORRY! I meant to say that he uncapped his pen. My bad. **

**Also, When I was rereading this story, I realized that I was channeling Monty Python and the Holy Grail when I said "get on with it!" Love that movie. **

**On a completely different note, how was everyone's holidays?I spent a relaxing break doing nothing. I meant to update this on the day we were all going to die, but, oh well. Clearly that didn't happen.**

**Disclaimer: I'm out of good disclaimers. **

Chapter Nine: Please Ignore the Random Fights

Annabeth POV

I swallowed nervously as Filch glanced at my knife.

Crap.

Filch grinned evilly. "Well, well, well, what have we got here?"

I felt everyone else's glances. Why do they always rely on me to get them out of sticky stupid situations? Oh right, because I'm the only one with a head on her shoulders. Okay. Think. Think. Oh!

I snapped my fingers in front of me. "You don't see us. You never saw us. You are going to walk away now," I ordered, hoping to Athena that the Mist would kick in.

Filch laughed. I could practically hear Percy swallow.

"Um, Wise One? Something tells me the Mist doesn't affect him," Nico said carefully.

"Oh, you figured that out all by yourself, did you?" I replied sarcastically.

Filch cackled. "Oh, Dolores will be happy that I found you. Students out of bed! Come with me. We'll figure out a proper punishment for you."

He turned, and I quickly hid my knife before following him, with my friends trailing behind me. We walked down several corridors and stairwells, down a dark and dank hallway, into a room full- and when I say full I mean full- of file cabinets.

"Now stay here while I go get teacher. I'm locking you in. Don't try any funny business- I've got Mrs. Norris on the case," Filch told us. We waited until we heard the audible click of the door locking, and the footsteps fading away before chaos broke out.

I rounded onto the others. "Way to help me back there. I'm not the only person who can sort stuff out, you know."

My boyfriend cocked an eyebrow. "Excuse me, but I'm pretty sure you're the smart one here."

I glared at him. "Oh, so now it's my fault?"

"Um, was he not looking at _your _knife?"

"How do you know he wasn't looking at Nico's sword? It's not exactly inconspicuous."

Nico turned to me. "Why is is suddenly my fault?"

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, maybe it's because you're the one with the big, black sword."

"Well, he could have just as easily noticed Thalia's glowing silver aura."

Sparks flew off Thalia's fingertips. "Don't bring me into this, di Angelo," she threatened.

"Maybe I will, _Sparkles_," Nico retorted.

"Guys, we are not getting into the name game," Percy tried to intervene.

"Well who's idea was it to go to the Room of Requirement in the first place?" Thalia asked.

"Nico," I replied.

Nico raised his hands in self-defense. "I only told you where it was. We didn't have to go at all. Or maybe if Thalia hadn't been showing off so much, we would've gotten out of there earlier and then we wouldn't have been caught."

"Or maybe we could've rescued Zeus's bolt before it got stolen," I said.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I think you know what it's supposed to mean."

"And maybe I do. But is it that hard to say it out loud? Is Annabeth scared?"

"Nico, you're making no sense."

"Neither are you. How are you supposed to retrieve something before it goes missing?"

"It's a metaphor."

"I _know what it is_. It's a crappy one, at that."

"Are you insulting my intelligence?"

Thalia mock gasped. "Intelligence? What intelligence?"

I rounded on her. "Oh, you're asking for it."

That's when all Hades broke loose.

I'm not really sure what happened, but I remember a major shouting fest. I also distinctly remember Thalia setting fire to some papers on Filch's desk. None of us noticed the two adults standing in the doorway.

"ENOUGH!" Umbridge's voice resounded through the room, obviously magnified to be audible above us. We froze, Thalia aiming one last kick at Percy's shins before turning to the professor.

Umbridge smiled sweetly at us. "Mr. Filch has informed me of the situation. Students out of bed, causing havoc in the hallways? Tut, tut."

I opened my mouth to protest that we hadn't been causing a single disturbance, but I didn't get a chance before Umbridge continued on.

"I'm sure that must result in a punishment."

"I also believe that punishment would require the assent of the Heads of the Houses in which the students belong," another voice said.

We glanced at the doorway. Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape, and Professor Flitwick stood there, looking very angry.

Umbridge sniffed. "This does not concern you."

Snape intervened. "Actually, seeing as they are our students, it does concern us."

Something indiscernible crossed Umbridge's face. "Alright, then. What do you propose is a good punishment for these students breaking the rules. On their first day, might I add?"

"Well, seeing as it's their first offense, and they were only out past curfew, I don't think anything harsh will be necessary," Flitwick squeaked.

Filch growled. "Maybe you are not aware, but these students were carrying weapons. Knives and swords!"

I bit my lip as I felt the glares of the three teachers burn into me. We were dead. Even if Umbridge and Filch didn't kill us, McGonagall and Snape would.

McGonagall came to the rescue. "I don't see any weapons on them right now."

Filch turned to stare at us. "They probably hid them somewhere. Search the room! Search them!" he cried.

Nico cleared his throat. "Um, excuse me, but even if we did have weapons, why would we hide them in here? Then we'd have to come back and get them, or you might find them and confiscate them in this filing cabinet- what was it called?- ah, Highly Dangerous Objects."

Thalia shook her head. "Weak," she muttered, referring to Nico's argument.

Nico turned to her. "Excuse me?" he spat, eyes on fire.

"I said your argument is weak. I could have done better."

"Oh, could you have? Well, why don't you try?"

"Maybe I will."

"Guys," I intervened with a weary voice. I turned back to the teachers. "Look, if you want to search us, by all means. You are not going to find any weapons on us."

The members of Dumbledore's Army exchanged glances. Meanwhile, Umbridge pulled out her wand. "_Accio weapons_!" she cried, swishing her wand at us. In the background, Percy snickered. Without looking at him, I stomped on his foot. That shut him up.

Nothing happened.

I tried to suppress a smirk. All of the adults looked dumbfounded. Umbridge's smirk had been wiped right off her face. She tried the spell again. Again nothing happened. I have to say, you gotta love magic. Especially when it works against other magic.

"So now that we have proved that the students are not carrying weapons, I suppose we should return to the real matter at hand," Professor McGonagall recovered from her slight shock.

"But I saw them! They had weapons, I tell you!" Filch protested.

"Well they clearly don't now. So unless they disposed of them on their trip to your office, they never had them in the fist place."

"Well, they should still be punished for breaking the rules," Umbridge said.

"I agree," Filch added.

"Perhaps detention with me? Harry Potter is already busy for the rest of the week. I'm sure he'd love some company."

"I don't think putting all of them together is a very good idea," Snape interposed. "Who knows what they would get up to."

"Perhaps we should have them do something productive," Flitwick suggested.

"What do you propose?" McGonagall asked.

"We could have them clean the trophy room."

"I think they should experience the traditional punishment," Umbridge said in a falsely sweet voice.

McGonagall glared at Umbridge. "I hope you don't mean what I'm thinking of. That punishment was outlawed years ago."

Percy and I exchanged glances.

Umbridge gave a high-pitched laugh. "What harm has writing lines ever done for anyone? If anything, it should teach them obedience."

McGonagall relaxed slightly. "Alright then, they will do lines. Are we all in agreement?" The other teachers nodded, albeit reluctantly. "When should they serve their punishment?"

"I'm available on Saturday," Snape offered. McGonagall sent him a glance.

"Alright," she said. "You four will report to Professor Snape's office on Saturday at five o'clock in the afternoon. Do not be late."

**Okay. That was really lame. And yeah, it's been over a month. I'm really sorry guys. I had midterms in January, and my friend wanted me to go skiing every weekend, and I have my ski team practice three times a week with races on Thursdays. Oh, and we have this student teacher in my bio class and she SUCKS. Okay, rant over. **

**I must insist you people read these two books by Catherine Jinks: _The Reformed Vampire Support Group _and _The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group_. They are really funny and put a different twist on those annoying vampire stories. **

**Don't forget to review, please!**

**-Silver out.**


	11. Quarrels about Quotidian Quidditch

**Hello. So, thanks to Michelle (guest), I made some changes to story. For example, I got rid of the author notes in the middle of the story, and I tried to look for some spelling, but I really suck at editing. And I finally fixed the title (I've just been to lazy to change it).**

**Okay, so I've reread most of the stuff I've written, and I realized... my writing really sucks. So, I'm going to try to make it better. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own any part of this. **

Chapter 10: Quarrels about Quotidian Quidditch

Percy POV

We were escorted back to our respective houses, but not after being thoroughly reprimanded by Professor McGonagall. She went on about how we nearly blew our cover, and how we had to try harder if we wanted to remain unnoticed. Her fierce voice gave me the beginning of a massive headache.

When we reached our dorm rooms, Thalia made her way up to the girl's rooms, while I climbed the spiral staircase that led to the boy's rooms. I crept into my bed, trying to avoid waking up my fellow dorm mates.

I closed my eyes. Almost immediately, sleep caught up with me. However, it was followed by the ever-present demigod dreams.

_I stood on a small hill. The air was cool with a bite of a sharp bite to it. The only source of light was the moon, which was nearly a nonexistent crescent hanging low in the sky. A few stars sparkles, but they were dimmed, like someone covered them with paper. The sky itself was a pretty inky blue, signifying it was late at night. Gusts of wind blew my hair out of my face. I tried to see, but the darkness was as thick as paint._

"_Hello?" I shouted. I took a step to the left and smacked my shin against something hard. I bent down, trying to distinguish what it was. It had the shape and feel of a gravestone. _

_A pinprick of yellow light appeared in the distance. I watched it as it slowly grew larger. The light threw a dark figure into a shadowy relief. The said person threw its hood of the cloak off, revealing a young woman with olive skin and dark hair. She looked familiar, for some reason. Her eyebrows rose in cold arches, giving her the appearance of believing she was superior to others. The woman's face was oval shaped, with full lips and rather large eyes. She carried a lantern, hence the light source, in one hand, and held a wand in the other. _

_The wind blew, throwing her hair into disarray. _

"_Lia!" she cried out, turning in the wind. Her voice was lost quickly, ripped away from her and carried away into the distance. "Lia, where are you?"_

_A moment or so later, the air around us thickened before spitting out another cloaked figure. I knew that type of travel for wizards was called Apparating. I assumed this new character was Lia. My suspicions were confirmed when the first witch let loose a "_Lia!"

_Lia pulled down her hood, revealing similar features to the other one, making me wonder if they were sisters. Lia was younger looking, but sadder. Her clothes didn't fit her properly, as if she had lost weight and hadn't bought new clothes. Lia's mouth was turned down and her hair was pulled back in a fancy bun. Lia turned to the other girl. She smiled sadly. _

"_Good evening, Elizabeth," she said formally. There was a pause, then the two woman gave in and embraced each other. _

"_I've missed you so much," Elizabeth murmured quietly, but I could hear her from where I was standing. They separated and Lia asked a question. _

"_Why did you call for me?" she inquired. _

_Elizabeth looked at the ground. "I wanted to see you before you left for America," she admitted. "And I couldn't talk to you at home, so I chose here. Do you remember this place?"_

_Lia looked around. Despite the darkness, she seemed to recognize it's features._

"_This is the potter's field, next to the cemetery. We used to play here as children."_

_Elizabeth nodded. "We played hide-and-seek behind the gravestones. And when we got older, Daddy put up the swing in the cherry tree for us."_

_Lia smiled, remembering the memories. "And we would collect wildflowers and put them on the graves. And then you started bringing William here." Her voice suddenly became cold, and I wondered who William was. She turned away from her sister._

"_Lia!" Elizabeth protested. "I'm sorry. I wanted to invite you to the wedding, but Daddy wouldn't let me."_

_Lia shook her head. "Beth, I don't care about the wedding. I'm happy that you got him. You're happy now. I'll find someone when I go to America. Besides I hear there are many new inventions over there. Did you hear about the Wright brothers?"_

_Elizabeth grabbed her sister's arm. "Don't make me the bad person here."_

"_What can I say? You won. Father won. Mother won. I made a bad choice. This place is no longer home. Not where my family ridicules me for falling for him. Not where he stole my heart and left me as the laughing stock of the town. I can't stay here. Father made it clear he never wants to see me again, either."_

_Elizabeth had tears streaming down her face. "Please. Jut say that you were wrong. Say that those things you said weren't true. We can be a family again."_

_Lia shook her head. "I can't lie. It is true, and you know that. And I was a fool to think that I could win over the heart of a god."_

_Elizabeth sobbed. "No! Please, just say it's not true!"_

_Lia's breath caught. "I'm sorry. I can't." She looked around. Then she reached to her neck and took off a locket. My dream self zoomed in on it, and I saw a symbol that I didn't recognize carved into the front. Lia placed it into Elizabeth's hand and closed the hand over it. _

"_Good bye, Elizabeth. Don't forget me."_

_Lia began to disappear, and the scened faded away with her. I then found myself in a small apartment. It was mostly empty, save for a couple of tables and a chair. I walked through a doorway into another room. I stepped on something and looked down. The wooden floor was covered in expensive jewels. Rubies, emeralds, diamonds, gold nuggets, sapphires. A broken vase laid on the ground in the corner of the room. Suddenly I knew where I was. It was like somebody had whispered it into my ear. This was Hazel's old apartment in New Orleans after she moved to Alaska. I walked into a different room. I noticed a picture frame lying face down on the ground. I picked it up. _

_The picture looked old, like it had been taken years ago. The edges were worn and yellowed. The photo was no bigger than wallet size. It was a wedding photo. I recognized the woman as an older, more worn replica of Lia. She seemed happier in the picture, but her eyes looked into the distance like she was thinking about someone else. The man gazed at Lia with adoration. He was African American. _

_I slipped the picture out of the frame to see if I could find the name of the man on the back. I flipped it over. There was writing, but it was in fancy cursive, so it took me a while to decipher it. _

Emerick Levesque and Liliana Ash, happily wed on June 14, 1906.

"_Percy," a voice called out. I looked around, slipping the photo into my pocket. Hazel stood in the doorway. "Percy," she said again._

"_Hazel?" I asked, confused. _

"_Percy!" she said more insistently. _

"_What?"_

_Suddenly her voice changed. "PERSEUS JACKSON IF YOU DON'T WAKE UP RIGHT THIS MINUTE I WILL PERSONALLY MAKE SURE YOU NEVER WAKE UP AGAIN."_

I opened my eyes to see an angry Thalia glaring down at me. She noticed my opened eyes.

"Good. You're awake."

"Yes. I'm awake," I grumbled.

"It's Wednesday morning, and you slept in. Classes start in fifteen minutes, so get up." She left.

I groaned as I stood up. As I was getting changed, there was a crinkling sound from my pants pocket. I frowned and reached into it, pulling out a piece of paper.

It was the photograph from my dream.

Freaked out, I got changed as fast as I could and made my way to my first class of the day.

Nico POV

The morning went by fairly quickly, and before I knew it, it was lunch. I passed by the Gryffindor table. Percy looked at me and opened his mouth as if he were about to proclaim Armageddon, but then he shut it and I continued on my way.

Lunch was delicious, as usual. We talked about random things.

I'm really making my life seem so interesting, aren't I?

Sorry 'bout that.

Anyway, our last class was DADA, again. I grinned as I thought about what I had planned for the class. I walked through the mass of students leaving the Great Hall for their classes. Patrick was off trying to impress some girl he'd apparently had a crush on since second year. Alec looped an arm around me as we walked and Logan sent us a slightly concerned look.

"Hey, where were you, last night?" Alec said, like the thought had just occurred to him.

_Styx_. My brain went on fast forward as I tried to come up with a suitable excuse. "Uh..."

Logan raised an eyebrow at me.

"I went for a walk," I replied hastily.

"After curfew," Logan pointed out.

I nodded convincingly. "Yeah. Sometimes I can't sleep so I take a walk. I-" I was saved from trying to convince Logan where I'd been by Percy interrupting us.

"Nico, we need to talk." He pulled me the rest of the way to the classroom, leaving behind the Slytherins. He pulled me into a seat and opened his mouth.

"Okay, so last night I had this dream. There were these two women, and-"

"_Hem, Hem._" That voice was really starting to annoy me. "Good afternoon, class."

'"Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge," the class replied dully.

Umbridge grinned. "See? That wasn't too hard today, was it?"

Nobody answered her.

"Now, class, must I remind you? When I ask you a question, either you reply _yes, Professor Umbridge, _or _no, Professor Umbridge_. Now, that wasn't very hard, was it?"

"No Professor Umbridge," we all answered. I glanced at Thalia, who had said it with so much sarcasm it was practically gushing red. She grinned back at me.

"Now," Umbridge continued, "today you will take out your books and read chapter two. There will be no need to talk." She sat down at her desk as the students sighed and reluctantly took out their books. About ten minutes into class, I decided it was time to have a bit amusement.

I used my son-of-Hades powers to summon a mouse skeleton. I attracted the attention of Thalia, Percy, and Annabeth and displayed it to them. Percy grinned. I bent over and let the mouse loose. It turned around a couple of times, getting its bearings. I directed it in the direction of Umbridge's desk. It scampered through the classroom, circling around chairs and desk legs. It wasn't long before the entire class was watching the dead mouse make its way to the front of the class.

I made it squeak when it reached Umbridge's feet. Umbridge looked down and let out a little scream. The class roared with laughter. I directed the mouse to annoy Umbridge, clawing at the hem of her robes, darting around, and altogether causing much frustration from the authoritarian woman.

Annabeth nudged me. "Are you planning on doing this every class?" she hissed.

I nodded. "Yup."

Annabeth rolled her eyes and sat back in her seat.

The rest of the class was spent basically goofing around. Umbridge thought she had restored order after making my mouse disintegrate, but while she wasn't looking, people were causing mayhem. Paper airplanes were being magically flown across the room, quiet conversations took place with the person next to you. The bell finally rang, and everyone nearly leaped out out of their seats. Annabeth and I joined Percy, Thalia, Harry, Hermione, and Ron as we headed outside.

Hermione was scolding Harry about procrastinating with homework even though it was only the first week of school. Ron was happily munching on an apple.

Somehow, Ron and Harry got into a discussion about Quidditch tryouts. Harry turned to Percy.

"Hey, Percy, are you going to try out for the team?" he asked.

One look. One look between the four demigods was all it took for us to burst into laughter. Really, Percy flying around on a broomstick a couple hundred feet in the air?

"You want _Percy Jackson_ to fly? Don't make me laugh," Thalia gasped, doubled over.

Ron was frowning. "I don't get it," he said.

Annabeth snorted. "Let's just say he'd probably spend the next ten years of his life in a hospital bed."

Harry nodded knowingly. "I tend to spend a lot of time in the hospital wing too." He obviously didn't understand _why_ Percy wouldn't see the light of the next day. "What about you, Thalia?"

That made Percy collapse into more laughter.

I threw an arm around Thalia. "Actually I think you'd be _perfect_ for the team. Since your dad was all, you know, into air sports and stuff."

Thalia threw my arm off. "What did you just say?" she spat.

Percy straightened up. "Yes, I think I'd like to see that too," giving Thalia a sly look.

Thalia glared spectacularly at Percy. "Right now, I really want to gut you with my knife, slowly and painfully so I can laugh at your screams and then feed your entrails to my wolves," she said slowly and menacingly.

Percy backed up. "Hey! I didn't say anything!"

I frowned at him. "Anything about what?"

Percy's eyes darted from a very angry Thalia, to three very confused wizards, to a very thoughtful Annabeth, to...me.

"Anything about...nothing," was Percy's reply to my question.

I threw my hands up in the air. "Well, that's helpful."

"It's not supposed to be, genius," Thalia snapped at me.

"Woah, breathe there, Pinecone Face," Percy tried to intervene.

"You know what I want to see? I want to see Nico trying out for the team," Thalia got a strange glint in her eye.

I backed up. "No way. Nuh-uh. You're crazy."

"Wow. Because every girl wants to be called crazy. That makes me feel so good."

"Why would you care? You're not like most girls," I pointed out.

"You're not helping the cause, Nico," Annabeth said wearily.

Thalia crossed her arms. "Tell you what. I'll make you a deal. I won't kill you- either of you- for insulting me if Nico tries out for the team."

Sadly, I didn't really have a choice. When Thalia makes a threat, she follows through with it. "Alright," I agreed. "As long as you swear on the Styx."

Thalia rolled her eyes. "I swear on the Styx."

I nodded. "You've got a deal." We glared at each other for a little bit longer.

There was a silence that Ron broke with, "So, who wants to go to dinner?"

**Teehee. I hope you guys enjoyed the chappie. And so the plot thickens! **

**Thank you guys for all those AMAZING reviews! They always make my deal. You know what would be awesome? If we reached 400 reviews! **

**RANDOM QUESTION FOR MY AUSTRALIAN READERS: Where do you guys live? I've been there a couple of times for family, so I wanna see if I can relate. Have you guys been to Echo Point with the Three Sisters? Or Featherdale Wildlife Park? Or Bondi Junction? Or have you seen those flowers that are New South Wales' state flower that I have no idea how to spell but they are big, tall, and look like they are from outer space?**

**-Silver out**


	12. Don't mess with the broomstick

**I'm going to start off by saying how sorry I am about the wait. I never meant to be gone so long from fanfiction. But honestly, I have no time at all and my mom says I spend too much time on the computer. And to add to that I'm having a serious case of writer's block, which is not helping at all. So, this chappie will probably be just a filler.**

**Disclaimer: I am not Rick. Nor am I J.K.**

Chapter 11

Percy POV

I had been dreading this day since Nico made that deal with Thalia after classes. At least I wasn't trying out, but it was almost just as bad thinking about how I would have to watch Nico fail miserably and probably spend the next month in the hospital wing. Not exactly how I want to spend my Friday.

But nonetheless, Thalia, Annabeth, and I made our way down to the Quidditch field to watch the Slytherin tryouts. Nico had gone ahead to get some flying tips from his BFFL, Logan.

We climbed into the stands, staying at the lowest row, in case we had to give Nico medical help. Which was altogether too possible.

"Nico is going to kill you after this," I muttered to Thalia.

Thalia grinned evilly. "I know."

We fell silent as the original Slytherin team flew out on their broomsticks. They were soon followed by hopeful looking students. And in the back, gripping onto his broomstick very tightly, was a very green-looking son of Hades. Thalia grinned and propped her legs up on the railing. Even from here, the three of us could see Nico flip her off.

A whistle blew, and the students closed in on Malfoy. They conversed for a minute, then parted ways. They separated into groups, depending on positions on the team. Nico was with the Chasers.

One of the captains opened the crate and released the balls, save for the Snitch. Everyone sprang into action.

There was a movement next to me. I turned to see Logan and his two friends sitting down in a nearby row. There were some other students scattered throughout the stands.

Logan himself looked rather worried. No doubt is was the fact that Nico had never flown on a broomstick in his life, and he was up against people like Crabbe and Goyle.

I turned back to the tryouts. Needless to say, Nico wasn't doing too well.

Suddenly, the sky crackled with lightning. We looked up. The once blue sky was now covered in dark, ominous clouds.

"I think Nico should get out of the sky," Annabeth said worriedly.

"Nah, he's fine," Thalia replied.

Not long after, Nico passed in front of us. He stopped for a moment.

"I'm going to kill you if I survive this," he directed to Thalia.

Thalia appeared unperturbed. Lightning crackled again and the skies opened up to reveal torrential rain. The wind began to pick up. With a small cry, Nico's broomstick carried him away.

Lightning struck a nearby post. I turned away. "I can't watch," I said, deciding to look at Thalia instead. That's when I noticed Thalia gripping her mace canister. Her face was tight, not with worry, but with concentration. Suddenly I understood.

"Are you crazy?!" I shouted at her. "Do you have a death wish?"

"Depends on if he survives. Then I'll worry about the consequences."

Annabeth turned to her best friend. "Excuse me?" she raised an eyebrow.

"Hey Annabeth, can you go yell at Nico to get out of the sky before Thalia electrocutes him?"

"_WHAT_?"

"JUST GO!"

As soon as Annabeth had left, I pounced on Thalia, knocking her disguised weapon out of her hands.

Thalia glared at me. "Oh, you did not."

"Oh, yes I did."

"It is on."

"Bring it."

Thunder boomed and Thalia sent a punch towards my face. I blocked it and sent one her way. She dodged and put a hand on the metal railing. I understood right before it happened. I jumped over the rail and free fell. Behind me, lightning struck the railing making the entire stadium electrically charged. I prayed that the ground was muddy. Concentrating on the water in the mud, I focused on bringing it together, creating an elastic surface.

I used the water like a trampoline, and landed back on the stadium flooring. Thalia was waiting for me, glaring at me through water soaked hair. I realized that I had to let myself get wet otherwise the wizards would get suspicious.

"You always have to ruin everything, Jackson," she said, sending me her death glare.

"Ruin everything? You were trying to kill him!"

Thalia rolled her eyes. "No I wasn't. I promised I wouldn't, remember? I was just fooling around with him."

"By terrifying him out of his mind? Oh, yeah, great tactics."

"Oh, please. Like we don't fight all the time."

"But that was unprovoked!" I protested.

"Oh, yeah? Well, you attacking me was unprovoked!"

"What, you expect me to ask you to just hand over your most lethal weapon?"

"No."

I groaned. "This is getting nowhere." The rain started to fall even harder, mixed in with some hail. "Why is life against me!"

Thalia made a thoughtful face. "Probably because you were supposed to die years ago."

"Aw, thanks. That thought just makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside," I replied sarcastically.

"It wasn't supposed to," she deadpanned.

"Well, good. 'CAUSE IT'S NOT WORKING!"

"GAH!" Thalia exploded. "You're just so... UGH!"

I mock bowed. "Well thank you, thank you very much. I love it when people describe me with nonexistent words."

"YO! THALIA AND PERCY JACKSON! SHUT UP AND GET YOUR ASSES DOWN HERE!" Annabeth shouted over our argument. We looked down. She was standing next to Nico, who was lying on the ground. We shared a glance, then got our asses down there. If there was one thing more terrifying than an angry Annabeth, it was an impatient, angry Annabeth.

When we got down to the ground, Annabeth was waiting, tapping her foot on the wet ground. Nico was holding his arm close to his chest.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Nico has some... difficulty... landing," she replied tartly.

Nico closed his eyes. "I'm wet, tired, in pain, and half of the Slytherin house is looking at us like we're aliens. I hate you so much, Thalia."

We looked around. Several sopping wet students were staring at us in horror.

"Annabeth, can you hand me my broomstick?" Nico groaned.

Thalia and I turned back to him. "Why?"

A loud smack, followed by a second smack and severe pain in my head answered my question.

Nico was holding his broomstick in his hands like a baseball hat. "I finally found a good use for this gods damned torture device from hell."

**Holy crap, that was bad. I just wanted to update. Sorry if the argument was lame or Thalia seemed incredibly OOC.**

**-Silver out.**


	13. Family Trees and Battle Tactics

**Um... hi. *Coughs awkwardly* This is really quite embarrassing. I feel really bad about this long waits between chapters, but honestly, I'm just really lazy. There's no other explanation. I hope this chapter makes up for it. I think high school killed my creativity. I had the worst writers block ever until the last week of school. **

**I'm going to fangirl about another fandom right now... OH MY FREAKIN GODS! COULSON IS ALIVE! THIS IS AMAZING!**

**You know what annoys me? SLASHES. They drive me crazy. I feel like the fanfiction world has been taken over by slashes. **

**Disclaimer: Even though Amazon is now publishing fanfiction stories, I still do not own Percy or Harry. Sigh. **

Chapter Twelve: Family Trees and Battle Tactics

Nico POV

After taking a very long shower, I met up with Percy in the library.

Yes.

The library, of all places.

I wonder about that child sometimes.

Percy was sitting at a small study table next to the restricted section. I slid into the seat across from him. "What's up?" I glared at him. I still wasn't ready to forgive him for the whole tryout thing. Although he _did_ try to save my life. I guess that deserves some credit.

"Okay, so, I had this dream a couple of nights ago, then I forgot to ask you about it, then I remembered." I raised an eyebrow. "So, it starts in this cemetery, and there are these two women. I'm pretty positive they were witches. Anyway, they were arguing, one was named Lia, I think, and she said something about winning over the heart of a god. Then the scene changed and I was in Hazel's apartment back in New Orleans. And I found this picture." He pulled out a worn photograph and handed it to me.

I looked at it. It was a wedding photo. On the back, it listed the names of the couple. Emerick Levesque and Liliana Ash. "These were probably Hazel's grandparents."

Percy nodded. "I figured it was something like that. But I don't understand why I had that dream, or why I found the photo in my pocket when I woke up."

I frowned thoughtfully. "I would assume that a god wanted to tell you something. Was there anything else from the dream?"

"They mentioned a man named William. I think the sister, Elizabeth, married him."

"Maybe they wanted you to trace the genealogy, or something."

"Are there any books on genealogy here?"

"Probably," I replied, looking around. "But you said Liliana moved to America?" Percy nodded. "Usually when people moved to America back then, they changed their names. So unless we know her original surname, I doubt any searching will have answers."

"Could you ask any of your soul mates?" Percy smirked a little. I gave him a look. "You know, Logan and his buddies."

I rolled my eyes. "I can ask them, yes."

"Great!" Percy exclaimed, standing up. "Now let's get out of here. Libraries make me claustrophobic."

"Then why'd you pick a library to have a top secret discussion?"

"'Cause it's _top secret_, duh."

We exited the library, and took a right. It wasn't long before we were lost. Damn these ancient castles.

"Um, Perce? Do you have any idea where we're going?"

"Not really."

"Great."

We took another right, and nearly crashed into Harry. A couple of "excuse me"s and "sorry"s later, we sorted ourselves out and continued on our respective ways. It wasn't until we reached a dead end when I realized we could have asked Harry for directions.

"Percy, we're stupid," I told him.

"I never thought I'd hear you call yourself stupid."

"Okay, I take that back. _You_ are stupid, and I was just momentarily pulled into your trap of stupidity."

"Well, that makes me feel so much better," Percy sent me a sidelong look.

"Well it makes me feel better. I don't care about you."

Percy was about to reply, when we heard a hoot from behind us. Slowly, we turned around.

And came face-to-face with a large gray owl.

"Styx," Percy said mildly. Then we noticed that there was more than one owl. There were hundreds, sitting in window sills, perches around the large room, and floors. And they looked ready to kill us. "Hades underpants."

I shot him a look. "I'm going to pretend that you did not just use my father's undergarments in vain and suggest we run."

"I think that's a good idea."

So we ran.

It wasn't long before we met up with Harry again. "Percy?" he called. Percy glanced back. "What're you doing?"

"Just going for a light jog," Percy managed.

"Yeah, this is light," I muttered.

When we reached the Gryffindor tower, we finally stopped running. I left Percy and caught my breath as I walked back to the Slytherin dormitories.

I slumped onto my bed and closed my eyes. Being around family was really exhausting.

I'm not sure how long I lay there, but after a while, I heard the door open. I cracked an eye open. Logan had entered the room.

"Hey," he said.

"Hi," I replied.

He sent me a slightly suspicious look. I figured he was going to ask me about the Quidditch tryouts and what happened, but instead he just sat down on his bed and opened a book. I watched him for a while, pretending to have my eyes closed. I was slightly worried that he was on to something about us. We hadn't exactly been completely innocent in the week we'd been at the school. And Logan wasn't exactly stupid, either.

"Hey, I've got a question for you that you may know the answer to."

Logan looked up, wordlessly inviting me to ask my question. "Do know anything about the genealogy of some older wizarding families?"

"Depends on the family, I guess. Who did you have in mind?"

"I'm not sure of the real surname, but I think it's probably along the lines of Ash, if that helps at all."

Logan frowned. "Are you sure it's an old family?"

"It dates back at least to the late 1800s."

"Well, the only pureblood I can think of would be Ashwood. Why?"

I searched my mind for a good excuse. "I know someone who I think is a descendant of the Ash family. But it may have been the Ashwood family. I'm not sure."

"You could ask Kiana," Logan said. "She would probably know."

I agreed, and we found Kiana sitting in the common room with Vivian, doing their astronomy homework.

"Hey, Kiana, Nico had a question about the Ashwood family," Logan said after catching her attention. She studied me with her dark eyes.

"I may have an answer," she replied carefully.

"Um, did the Ashwood family have two sisters, named Liliana and Elizabeth?" I asked, watching her reaction. She rolled her hands in a _go on_ gesture. "Elizabeth may have married a man named William and Liliana married a man named Emerick?"

Kiana cocked an eyebrow. "My great great grandparents were Elizabeth and William Ashwood. However, I have no recollection of a man named Emerick," she replied.

"But did Elizabeth have a sister named Liliana?" I probed.

Kiana sighed. "Let me get a piece of parchment," she said. Vivian handed her a piece, watching with interest. Kiana dipped her quill in her ink bottle and started drawing a family tree. "My great-great-great grandparents were Thomas and Vera Ashwood. They had two daughters, Elizabeth and Liliana. Elizabeth married William, and had three children: Matthew, Sylvia, and Philip. Philip married a woman named Sira and had two children, Cassie and Devin. Devin got married and had my cousin, Jonathon. Matthew never married. Sylvia married Agustus Tristing. They had a son named Brian, my grandfather. He got married to Caroline, and my father, Robert Tristing, came into being. He married my mother, Corintha. And then there is my brother, Michael, and me." She finished the family tree.

"What happened to Liliana?" I asked, my mind swimming with names.

Kiana scowled. "She was disowned from the family and moved to America, I think. That may be where your Emerick comes in. Last I heard, there was a girl named Hazel, but that was back in the 1940's, like I said before."

I felt like my head was bout to explode. Hazel was related to this pureblood girl, her grandmother had been disowned by her family, which meant Hazel had magical blood in her. But then again, that would make sense; her mother had been a fortune teller- traces of Divination in her blood, maybe? But as far as Kiana knew, Hazel was dead. Well, she technically wasn't wrong.

"Okay," I said. "Thank you. I think that just made me more confused, but it cleared a little up a bit."

Kiana cocked her head. "No problem."

I walked away, Logan following me. I had a lot of thinking to do.

Percy POV

The night after the Escape of the Owlery, I had trouble getting to sleep. Every time I tried, I kept having nightmares from the Titan War. In the nightmares, I didn't get to Annabeth quickly enough, and she died from the knife wound. And then, I was up on Olympus, and instead of Ethan falling down to the sleeping streets of New York, it was me. I was falling.

Every time, I woke up, sweating profusely.

After trying to sleep three times, I decided to go down to the common room to think. It was after midnight, I doubted anybody would be in there. As I was leaving the dormitory room, I noticed both Harry's and Ron's beds were empty. Maybe they couldn't sleep, either.

I quietly made my way down the spiral staircase, not wanting to wake anybody. I entered the common room to find three bodies crouched in front of the fireplace. It wasn't that cold, I thought.

I coughed a little, alerting the people that I was there. They swiveled around, conveniently blocking the fire.

"Percy?" a girl's voice asked incredulously. "What are you doing here?"

I frowned a little. "I think I could ask you the same thing. Harry. Ron. Hermione."

Hermione let out a little squeak. "Oh, we're just... we just..."

"Couldn't sleep," Harry said hastily.

"So we came down here and decided to... y'know..." Ron waved his hand uselessly.

"Uh huh," I said. "Look, I may be a little slow on the uptake, but I'm not stupid. What are you guys doing?"

"Is that Jackson?" a voice sounded from behind them. Harry turned back to face the fire again.

"_Sirius_!" he hissed.

"Are you saying that _Sirius Black _is talking to you in the fire?" I asked incredulously. Hermione looked caught.

"Erm, perhaps," she said evasively.

"I think that beats me on the stupidity level. You do realize you could get caught very easily, right?" I directed to Sirius's face in the fire, walking over to where they crouched. "What's up?"

"Hey, Jackson," Sirius greeted. "I was just trying to explain to them why we think Umbridge is at Hogwarts."

I cocked an eyebrow. "And why would that be?"

"Fudge doesn't want you learning combat spells. He thinks that Dumbledore wants to take over his position and he could use students against Fudge."

I thought about it for a minute. "That would make sense," I replied. "It would be incredibly effective- if Dumbledore wanted to take over the Ministry in seven years," I added. "But it would be worthless now. The students are still under the influence of their parents. You would have to brainwash them for years to get them to think that Fudge was bad. It's sad to think that you have to brainwash people with the _truth_."

I noticed Harry, Hermione, and Ron staring at me like I was from another planet. However, Sirius was smiling.

"I knew you'd understand," he said.

I shrugged. "You learn these things over time," I said lightly. "Especially when you see it happen to your own friends," I added under my breath in Ancient Greek.

"So, anyway, I was thinking about visiting you guys at the next Hogsmeade trip, as Padfoot of course," Sirius added hastily.

"Are you crazy!" Hermione snapped. "They think they have a new lead on where you are!"

"Come on, Hermione. They always have 'new leads'. They don't have any idea where I am," Sirius tried to console the girl.

"Sirius, we heard Malfoy on the train. We think they do have a real lead on you. Don't risk it," Harry said.

Sirius gave Harry a sad gaze. "You're less like your father than I thought," he said. "I think I here Kreacher calling. I have to go."

And like that, Sirius's head was gone.

**How was that?**

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**Review please!**

**-Silver out.**


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